Black ink line drawing of a compass inside a tree branch ring, with banners reading Not all who wander are lost and an anchor below, styled as a tattoo design.

Compass and tree design with banner text

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows a compass with a decorative star-patterned centre inside a ring of twisting tree branches and leaves, with a heart-shaped knot at the top. Two banners carry the wording Not all who wander are lost, and a small anchor hangs from the lower banner. The design is rendered in fine black pen linework with light hatching and dotted shading on a cream background.

Botanical Lettering Compass Tree Branches Leaves Heart Banner Anchor Star Text

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the post boat came in on Tuesday with your envelope, and Mrs Pryce read the postmark aloud before I'd even dried my hands. Lisbon, she said, as if you'd sent a bag of gold instead of one page and a pressed fern. I have pinned the fern above the range where the steam can't reach it.

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Your father's compass is still on the dresser. I wound the little brass case open last week to see whether the needle had stuck, and it swings true as ever, pointing north past the teapot to the back door, which is about right for a house where nobody comes in from the sea anymore. I have not thrown out the anchor either. It hangs in the scullery among the net floats, and every time I pass it I think of the sort of man who would carve a heart into an oak and call it a map.

You wrote on the card that not all who wander are lost, and I have read enough of your letters to know you were never near the point. The vicar's wife says you should come home for the harvest supper. I told her you would come when the wandering was done, and she looked at me the way people look at a tide table they don't trust. The oak behind the chapel has grown a knot in its trunk shaped like a heart, the very one you swore you'd cut on the boat's bow.

Come back by the new moon if you can. If not, write and tell me which star is over you tonight, and I will tell you which one is over me, and we will call that a meeting.