Dear Abby...

This ran in a Dear Abby column and was soul searching for me:

The Cold Within
Six human trapped in
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 woman held hers
back,
For of the faces around the
fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next man looking
across the way
Saw not one of his church,
And couldn't 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 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 naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who
gave,
Was how he played the game.

The 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.