George Schultz 1898-1917

George Schultz 1898-1917 I was reposing voiceless on my deathbed, As with the silent fog on a winter’s morning, On the way out of here from kidney failure, And as I closed my windows there, On north Painter Street, I tried to recall the greatest day of my life. In pain, I remember grimacing there, And then, ten minutes before my heart said “no,” To this sad comedy called “Existence,” I saw inside my fading mind That still moment in time, That priceless artifact of mere memory: I saw Georgia Brown and me, Embracing and shivering like two birds at sunrise, Holding on to each other in the December drizzle, Of a long-forgotten morning in 1913, By the tall flagpole at the high school, There on busy Philadelphia Street. And even though I knew her heart, A loving heart which belonged to another, and another, She still accepted my romantic entreaties; My hushed whispering words of sweet infatuation; And that, my friends, Is what I miss the most: The fragrant audacious flirtations, The deeply passionate naïveté, Of the one and only Georgia Brown!