Poem About Leon Hall--my Uncle

On Sunday's when we'd go visit
he was almost always in the barn.
Sometimes he'd let me go in circles
with the horse walker inside the big
white barn round and round with his
Tennessee Walkers to cool them down
after riding or to exercise winter muscles.

Uncle Leon would come into the house
bringing the aroma of hay and mud and
grass and horse and he'd have to duck
his head through the short little kitchen
door into a room warm with Aunt Mary's
banana nut date bread and the sweet of ripening
peaches from the orchard just down hwy 21.

Breathing him in was like a field of wildflowers
and wind. He was a gracious man.

Leon Hall had a big heart and a bigger laugh
that came from way deep down. He loved his horses.
his family, and the big openness of the grassy fields
and trees of Bridle Ridge Acres.

When a man like Leon Hall would sweep you into a hug
and carry you piggyback around the twelve foot long
dining room table it felt like Christmas morning,
like a star had fallen from the sky,
lighting everything.

I think he made a lot of people feel that way.
You knew you were in the presence of someone Great
someone respected, a man who loved big,
a man who had the gift of vision
and a knack for making other people's dreams
come true. Leon Hall had charisma, an energy,
a rare kind of beauty--

And everyone who holds a memory of Leon Hall
they know how precious each reminisce is.
He was a true Southern Gentleman,
so few like him left
on this Earth and in this world.
There will never be another Leon Hall.

Do you sometimes when you dream of heaven
hear his big laugh and see his smile and
those twinkling eyes and hear the clickety clack
of an old Tennessee Walker gaiting across the clouds?