Counseling school lesson in diversity

(From my original Blogspot)

Last night, in my counseling class on "diversity," each of the students gave a presentation based on an experience in which each had lived a day as someone very different from ourselves. One student used a wheelchair all day; one lived as a homeless person, one as an amputee. The presentations were varied, and some were quite dramatic as each person spoke of their increased understanding and empathy towards the kind of person they had lived like.

One student presented an anonymous poem that captured the spirit of the evening. I present it as follows in its entirety:

THE COLD WITHIN Six humans trapped by happenstance in black and bitter cold Each one possessed a stickc of wood, or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of love, the first man held his back For among the faces; round the fire he noticed on 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 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 stock of wood was a chance to spite the white.

And the last man of the forlorn group did aught except for gain Giving only to those who give was how he played the game.

The morning light on logs held tight in dead still hands was grim They didn't die from cold without they died from cold within.

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That just really touched me.