Poem with a timely message

Here is a poem I think might wake up a lot of people to some of the various types of hate that exist in America. I thought you might like to publish it for your readers to think about. Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and yours.

-- Chester D. Lemonds, Cape Girardeau

The Cold Within

By James Patrick Kenny

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 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 looking 'cross the way

Saw one not 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 would 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 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 nought except for gain,

Giving only to those who gave

Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hand

Were proof of human sin.

They didn't die from the cold without.

They died from the cold within.