I was clearing up some stuff that had been sitting on my desktop since forever; putting it in folders and making sense of my workspace when I came across this poem - to say I was moved is an understatement. It brought to mind what I have always viewed as the root of many evils - racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all other forms of discrimination - a lack of tolerance. This goes for the workplace as well, and all other aspects of a person's life. I know it's not easy to love everyone, and as much as I try (seriously, I do), some people just need a kind of love that comes from a higher power - really beyond my efforts! I could go into a whole song and dance about my experiences and blah blah blah (like old folk who always have a real-life experience for every tall tale and all folklore), but I'd rather have you read this poem, and see exactly what I mean!
Six humans trapped by circumstance
In black 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 on the faces around the fire
She noticed one was black.
The next man looked across 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 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 his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was the chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nothing except for gain.
‘Giving only to those who gave’
Was how he played life’s game.
The logs held tight in death’s still hands
Were proof of fatal sin.
Because, you see, they didn't die from cold without,
They died from cold within.
Poem: The Cold Within by James Patrick Kinney
