Red cherry blossom branch tattoo with grey stems wrapping around the side of a torso over the ribs, in a botanical style.

Cherry blossom branch across ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A grey branch winds diagonally across the side of the torso, from the lower hip up towards the upper back, bearing red cherry blossom flowers and a few falling petals. The branch and petals are shaded with soft grey tones, while the blossoms use solid red ink with subtle darker shading for depth. The flowers are spread across the frame with plenty of bare skin between them, and the ink sits cleanly against the skin tone.

Botanical Ribs Cherry blossom Branch Flower Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm has taken the cuttings from the old tree before the frost, and you are the one who must carry them down the hill in a wet sack, keeping the grafts out of the wind. The abbot says the tree behind the refectory is older than the wall, and that when it goes, the monks will go too, which he says the way other men say the weather will turn.

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The path is steep and the sack keeps slipping against your hip. Twice you stop to tie it tighter. Below you the valley is grey with rain, and somewhere a bell is ringing for vespers that you will miss. Petals that dried on the bark last spring cling to your sleeve like paper. You do not brush them off. Brother Anselm told you they carry the tree's memory, and you believed him then, the way a boy believes anything said about trees.

At the lower gate the porter has a fire lit. He takes the sack without a word, unrolls one cutting and holds it to the lamp. Red buds are already swelling at the nodes, tight as knuckles. He grunts, which from him is praise, and hands you a bowl of barley broth.

Later, when the chapel is dark, you go back up to the orchard alone with a lantern. The old tree has nothing left but bare grey limbs, and from one of them a single flower has opened, out of season, its petals flushed deep red. You stand under it until the lantern gutters, then you go down to the refectory and tell no one what you saw.