A Thought Regarding Pride

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 his back,
For of the faces around the fire, he noticed one was black.
The next one looked cross the way and 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 naught 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 the cold without. They died from the cold within.

--James Patrick Kinney

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