GIVING Some stories are ideally told around a fire. A night time fire which lights up the faces around its warmth in the flame orange hue of its wildly licking tongues. The hiss and crackle of long pent up air and moisture freed from the fissures in the bark are best accompanied by the call of a fiery necked nightjar in the distance as he calls for spiritual deliverance, or the whooping, haunting hysteria of a hidden hyena.

If the time is right and the audience receptive, a story, or in this case a piece of poetry finds great resonance around the energy of the bush television as people stare deeply into the burning embers of the ‘hardekool’ wood, and in so doing they may catch a glimpse of their own souls.

One of my favourite pieces at times like this, when energies align under a Southern Hemisphere full of scintillating stars is called ‘The Cold Within’, and what makes it particularly significant for me is that the author is anonymous. He or she found no need perhaps to put their name to it, sending a strong message of defiance to the Ego.

THE COLD WITHIN

Six men 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 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 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 expect for gain,

Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death’s still hand was proof of human sin,

They didn’t die from the cold without – they died from the cold within.

ANONYMOUS

If Leadership is about giving, then perhaps the logs here, or the sticks of wood are the things we could so easily be giving. Time, appreciation, feedback, hope, support, care, empathy, guidance, compassion, forgiveness and even love.

Which of these precious logs of wood am I holding onto, and which harden my heart in the holding?

Whose fire might burn a little brighter if I shared the things that I can’t take with me anyway when my own fire runs out?

Is this a time when the value of these things could be exponentially greater than they have ever been before?

Apart from anything else, if I give the fire my offering, that mere gift will warm me from the inside and the out.

These questions still hold me curious in the tantalizing tentacles of their touch as I breathe in the bushveld aroma of reflection.

I wonder if the poem had featured six women?

I am willing to bet that at least one of them would have given the fire their stick of wood for the benefit of the community.

I have much to learn about the simple art of giving.

Steve