Off The Beaten Path

Worn water fountain. Prospect Park. Brooklyn, NY.
(Click picture for larger view)

"By constant dripping, water hollows stone,
A signet-ring from use alone grows thin,
And the curved plowshare by soft earth is worn."
~ Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17/18)

An old stone water fountain in Prospect Park, no longer in service; its metal pipes rusted, its basin cracked and crumbling. It stands in an area of the park set aside for reclamation; where the underbrush, plants, fallen trees and bushes are left untouched, ungroomed, to again become the natural forest it once was. This fountain will wear with the wind and rain, crack more in the summer heat and eventually be taken back to nature as fine dust. For now the bright white of the fountain stands as a small monument to earlier times, the late 1800s when Prospect Park was first built or to the early 1900s and the age of the large wheeled bicycles, when courting included long strolls on cobbled pathways under star strewn skies and this park was the place to be on hot summer evenings with family and friends.

Submission for LensDay topic "worn". (end of post)