Year's End, International Avenue Poem by Frank Bana

It's both cool and warm, at the corridor's end
Windows spanning one-eighty degrees
Views of brick walls and a small city square
Dedicated to children's defence
Now I sense coffee brewing down the hall
From the depths of my sanctuary, buried here
In self-accumulating paper trails.

Cool, the face of the industry of aid
The winter hustle of briefcase bearers
Cheap watch sellers by the bagel stands.
Warm, the office where my young poems tread
On cat's paws around the baby photos
The little stress balls and desktop toys.
Here I learned, in the quiet early hours
How to find out where happiness glows.

A Kenyan, Ghanaian, African-American,
An Indian, colleagues from the Caribbean
Form up the team with confidence!
I am certain of them. To us, from here,
With the flags of all nations almost in view,
The world seems large in its fragile glory
Red-faced with hope, chilled by despair
Still nursing ideas on how it might come through.