Still Wild: Poems from Bear Shack  (Modern History Press)                                                              Copyright 2025 © All Rights Reserved by Author


Late-Autumn’s Son
by
Suzanne Sunshower
for Steppenwolf Sunshower (2003–2021)

I released you,
as best as a loved one can,
when the last leaves began to fall.
I set you on your endless journey,
just as I am on mine, now
without you.
An angel who’d earned his wings, you were
the saint watching over me
when I topped the far leafy hill
to catch the last afros of red and orange
blazing across the Michigan autumn sky. 
A fringe of fire—your halo. Even now,
in what we call the “dead” of winter, 
I remember treetops alit in the crazy Fall sun 
and I nod with love, thinking:
Just a few moments more 
rays of sun … Yeah, 
you would have liked that.