The Cold Within

I don't know what's got me thinking of all these poems, but this one was written back in the '60s.

'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