Japanese-style landscape tattoo on an upper arm and shoulder, showing a grey pagoda, cherry blossom, red maple, rocks and rushing water.

Japanese pagoda landscape on upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A pagoda, a cherry blossom branch and a red maple sit above rocks and a cascading waterfall. The pagoda and rocks are rendered in soft grey shading with smooth gradients, while the blossoms and maple foliage are in warm pink and red. The two photographs show the same tattoo from different angles, with the design wrapping across the upper arm and shoulder.

Japanese Realism Upper arm Shoulder Cherry blossom Rock Water Landscape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Emi, the stone men finished the falls on Tuesday, and Master Oda made me carry the last basin up the hill on my back because I had said the water looked wrong. It did look wrong. Three winters of rain had taken the lip off the top step, so the river came down flat and grey instead of tumbling. I have spent a month learning to make it fall the way it used to, over the broken rocks rather than around them.

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The pagoda on the ridge has five roofs, and its bell has been silent since before Father was born. Oda says the building was never meant to be seen from the water, only from the path, so every morning I climb past the old cherry branch that reaches toward the eaves and stand where the pilgrims stand. The maple beside the lower pond has already turned. Its leaves hang over the rocks like something set alight very carefully.

Yesterday an old woman from the village stopped at the rail and asked whether the water would still sound the same. I told her I had listened to it for weeks and it sounded like someone breathing out slowly. She laughed and said her husband had put it the same way, the summer before he was carried down past the falls for the last time. She left a coin on the step and I did not pick it up.

I went back at dusk and wet my hands in the spill. The coin was still there, copper gone green at the edges, the water running around it as if it had always been part of the stone. I am leaving it where it is. Write to me about the price of rice, and tell me whether the bell rings in the city yet.