The Sculpture

The rusted tank by the roadside,
grass, even a few flowers, growing
around and up through the turret.
Its broken-backed gun barrel reaches
like a pleading, dying hand.

Two skeleton-thin children,
dressed in rags, clamber over it
as though it is a rock formation
rising up from the ground,
or some playground apparatus
donated by wealthy benevolence.

It has lost its meaning as a weapon,
the children no longer run from it.
It is an obstacle, an item, a landmark.
It could even be a sculpture.

Did the teenage boy who fired
the missile that blew it apart,
destroyed its meaning,
the knight that killed the dragon,
ever realise that he became an artist?