Six humans trapped by happenstance
in bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire needed logs .
The first one held his back
For on the faces around the fire
He noticed one was black.
The next man, looking across the way
Saw one not of his church
And he couldn't bring himself to give
The first - that stick of birch.
The third man sat in tattered clothes;
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should he put his log 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 sight.
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 gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in death's still grasp
Was proof of human sin.
Thy didn't die from the cold without
But from the cold within.
Anonymous