The Cold Within

The Cold Within

 Six humans trapped by happenstance
 In dark and bitter cold
 Each possessed a stick of wood--
 Or so the story's told.

 Their dying fire in need of logs,
 But the first one held hers back,
 For, of the faces around the fire,
 She noticed one was black.

 The next one looked cross the way
 Saw one not of his church,
 And could not 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 wealth he had in store,
 And keeping all that he had earned
 From the lazy, shiftless poor.

 The black man's face bespoke revenge
 As the fire passed from his sight,
 For he saw in his stick of wood
 A chance to spite the white.

 And the last man of this forlorn group
 Did nought except for gain,
 Giving just to those who gave
 Was how he played the game,

 Their sticks held tight 

 in death's stilled hands
 Was proof enough of sin;
 They did not die from cold without--
 They died from cold within.

-- James Patrick Kinney