The Cold Within

This poem was shared by one of the members of the Toastmasters club I'm in. If you see yourself here, saw ouch and resolve to not hold on the your piece of wood and let the fire burn out because of your own fears/hatred/misunderstanding, etc of someone different from you.

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 around 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 poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge

As the fire 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 this 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 still hands

Was proof of human sin.

They didn’t die from the cold without,

They died from the cold within.

Author Unknown