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       The Cold Within

Six humans trapped by happenstance,
       in a bleak and bitter cold.
Now each one possessed a stick of word,
       or so this story is told.

There dying fire in need of logs.
       The first man held his back.
For of the faces around the fire.
       He noticed one was black.

The second man looking across the way,
       saw not a one of his church.
And could not bring himself to give
       the fire, his stick of birch.

The third man sat in tattered clothes,
       giving his coat a switch.
Why should his log be put to use,
       to warm the idle rich.

The rich man sat back and thought
       of his wealth and what 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.

The last man of this forlorn group,
       did not, except for gain,
giving only to those who gave,
       was how he played life’s game.

Their 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.

They died from the cold with in their hearts,
       because they could not forgive the cold within.
For the coldness of a human heart
       is the biggest human sin.

   Brother William T. Foster, Florence, Arizona DOC, 2003    www.LDSCOPS.com


 

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