by James Patrick Kinney, circa 1960
Six men 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 man held his back,
For of the faces 'round the fire,
He noticed one was black.
The next man looked across the way,
Saw one not of his church,
But couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third man, dressed in tattered clothes,
Then gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be given up
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man sat back thinking of
The wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From going to the poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge,
While fire passed from their sight.
Saw only in his stick of wood,
A way to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group,
Did nothing but for gain,
Give only unto those who gave
Was how he played the game.
The logs held firm in death stilled hands
Was proof of human sin.
They died not from the cold without
But from the cold within.
