Six humans trapped by happenstance
In black and bitter cold
Each one possessed a sitck 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 from his 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 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
stilled hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold
without,
They died from the cold within.
--------------------------------