Times Past

In a small meadow, somewhere in the mountains of western North Carolina, someone stuck an old bench  near a small tulip tree on the edge of the forest.  You can tell it once had a nice shiny coat of turquoise paint, and someone had taken care of it for a long time, but now it was left to the rain, snow and the elements to slowly wash the rest of the paint away. As the wood slowly rots, its former beauty is turned into a different sort of piece of art - touched by a  sweet sadness of time past, of a time when it served a function for someone maybe long gone - it now has earned its time to wither away in dignity in this peaceful place.