Ephemeral beauty

What makes a nice piece stand out ? The answer is probably entirely subjective but I sure have enjoyed building and manipulating this little component for the boat.

It will live its life as the mizzen mast step. It'll be buried down into the aft locker, covered in paint and not to be seen again. I've built it out of pieces of mahogany offcuts. I sure like the geometry and the nice grain of the wood.
I thought of dedicating a post to it as ... it won't be seen again after it is integrated to the boat. That makes it in a sense pretty ephemeral.