Mission Conference

They would have gone abroad themselves,
but Arthur's back precluded it.
So, once a year, they drive recklessly
at thirty miles an hour
down to the conference centre
in deepest Derbyshire.

They know what they want to see and hear:
Slide shows of grateful piccaninnies
with a Bible in one hand,
a banana in the other.
Pan pipes and ponchos;
panthers and polio -

but not the teachers in a Tashkent tower block
nor the techno outreach band from Prague.
Whatever is the world coming to?
Tea is served in the garden
whilst the organisers circle bright young couples
grinning like barracuda.

The world has now come to their door;
half their neighbours are Asian
though they know none of them by name
and Somalians gather in the bus shelter.
At last, they feel, it may be their turn to go overseas;
a villa on the Costa Del Sol.