The Cold Within
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In black and bitter cold
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs.
The first woman held hers back
For on the faces round the fire
She noticed one was black.
The next man looking cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire, his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned
from the lazy shiftless poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the first passed from his sight
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of forlorn group
Did naught except for gain
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
The logs held tight in death's steel hands
Was proof of human sin
They didn't die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.
-- Joy Patrick Kinny
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