“Trees are poems…”
This two-person bench is made from aspen that was milled by a friend from his woods just south of Birch Lake.  “Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky” - a quote from Kahlil Gibran - is burned/painted onto the sides.  While the lumber waited in our shed the woodworms did the work of making a few designs under the bark, which we have preserved when debarking.   The wood shows exceptional holographic qualities and very beautiful large knots which are suggestive of non-arboreal lifeforms in the grain.  The piece is fastened together with screws and capped with plugs cut from the same aspen.  Aspen dominates most of the forest land in our area now because it is so quick to outgrow other species after logging.  It becomes a very hard wood once dried and needs to be kept dry since it is prone to breakdown in the elements.  
Finished with oil-based polyurethane.