Black and grey olive branch tattoo with leaves and small flowers running up the inner forearm of a person lying on a bed beside an open book.

Olive branch tattoo on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman's forearm carries a black and grey olive branch with shaded leaves and small clustered flowers, running from the wrist towards the elbow. The fine shading gives the leaves depth and the flowers a soft, lifelike finish. Behind the arm, an open book with the printed words 'But I am like an olive tree flourishing' sits on white bedding, and the cool, muted tones keep the focus on the tattoo.

Botanical Forearm Flower Branch Book

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The frost had split the old stump of the Kourelis olive clean down its middle, and Nikos stood over it with the saw still in his hand, waiting for his father to say what they both already knew. His father said nothing for a long time. Then he took off his cap, turned it round in his fingers, and told him to leave the roots alone for now.

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Nobody in the village thought it would come back. The tree had given oil for ninety winters, and its wood was grey and hollow as a bell. But Nikos carried water up the terrace every morning in a tin bucket with a hole in the bottom, so it dripped a trail behind him like a question. Old Demetra from the next plot leaned on her wall and told him an olive that has been cut will sulk for a year before it forgives you. He told her he had time.

In April a green shoot pushed through the bark at the base, thin as a bootlace and pale silver on its underside. Then another, then a dozen, fanning out like the fingers of a hand. By midsummer the new growth stood taller than Nikos, turning its leaves in the wind, and the hollow was full of small white flowers that smelled faintly of honey and rain.

At the October harvest his father came up the terrace with a basket on his arm and a folded square of cloth. He cut one long sprig from the young growth, wrapped its stem in the cloth, and laid it on the kitchen table beside the bread without a word. Nikos did not ask him why. A tree that has been cut down has its own way of answering back.