Black and grey wrist tattoo of a shaded owl on a branch with a crescent moon and the script words Never lose hope.

Owl on a branch with script on a wrist

Lettering · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A shaded owl with dotted feather detail perches on a curved branch with two leaves, and a small crescent moon sits above it on the inner wrist. The script words Never lose hope run beneath the branch in a flowing hand. The tattoo is in black ink and grey tones against green grass in the background.

Lettering Realism Other Owl Moon Crescent Branch Leaves Script Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maud,

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The early Bramleys are dropping faster than we can gather them, and Mr Harker says the wasps will have the lot by Michaelmas unless we do something about it. So I have taken to sitting on the upturned crate by the bottom gate after supper, because that is where the owl comes. You will laugh, but I have started keeping it company the way you used to keep company with the kettle when you were studying.

It sits on the crooked damson branch above the wall, grey as wet slate, with those pale rings round its eyes like two saucers someone has forgotten to wash. I tell it about the price of sugar and how Dad's knee is worse in the damp. It only ever turns its head, slowly, as if it has heard every word before and is waiting for the good bit.

Last night the moon was no more than a paring, thin enough to lose behind the hop poles. The owl dropped off the branch without a sound and came back up with a vole, and while it was tearing at its supper a feather came loose and drifted down by my boot. It had little dots along the edge, neat as the pearls on Mother's collar. I have put it in the biscuit tin with your letters, and I am not ashamed to say I read your last one again while I was at it.

Dad's old packing crate still says it on the side in his square capitals, underneath the Kent Orchard Co. stamp: NEVER LOSE HOPE. He painted it the spring before you left, when he thought the frost was the worst thing that could happen to us. I used to think it was a silly thing to paint on a box. Now I think he knew exactly what he was doing, and so, I suppose, does the owl. Come home when the apples are in, or send word sooner.

Your loving sister, Nell

P.S. The owl sends its regards.