The Cold Within!

The Cold Within

 

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark 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 of the faces around the flame
She noticed one was black

*****
The second man looking all about
Saw no one of his church
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch

*****
The rich man sat and thought
Of all the wealth he had in store
Why should his stick be used to warm
The lazy, shiftless poor?

*****
The poor man sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch
No way would he let his stick be used
By the greedy selfish rich

*****
The black man bitter and full of rage
Held his oak branch tight
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white

*****
The last man of this forlorn group
Did nothing except for gain
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game

*****
The branches held in fate’s cruel hands
Was proof of human sin
They didn’t die from the cold without
They died from THE COLD WITHIN.

***** 

James Patrick Kenny