Black and green line drawing of a Polynesian-style tribal design with koru spirals and chevron bands, shown as a tattoo design on white paper.

Polynesian-style koru design with green fill

Mixed · Flash

A hand-drawn tattoo design on white paper, built from a long sweeping curve that ends in a large spiral at the bottom and a smaller curl near the top. Bold black outlines contain fine interior scrolls, dotwork accents and chevron bands, with the spaces filled in green marker. The composition is a flowing vertical panel with the main spiral weighted toward the lower right.

Spiral Wave Chevron Curl Scroll Tribal pattern

Find an artist for this

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

You climb the iron stair for the third time before the light is due, because the relief boat has been cancelled again and the wind has the rock by the throat. The fog horn sulks. Below, the sea does what it always does off Sule Skerry, lifting itself into a long green curve that holds its shape for a moment before it falls over.

Keep reading

On the ledge outside the lamp room a fern has forced its way from a crack in the granite. Nobody planted it. Its head is still closed, tight as a fist, and you have been watching it all week the way you watch the barometer. Maeve, who kept this light before you, used to say ferns on rocks were stubborn letters from somewhere warmer, and she would crouch and read them aloud to the gulls.

The wave comes in with a crest of white chevrons along its back. You grip the rail. The great lens throws its beam across the water, and the frond beside you begins to unroll, slow as a clock hand, one coil opening over the next until its tip points out to sea. You know the boat will not come before the wave breaks, and that the frond will still be here after.

You go down to the kitchen and find the old tide table, and on its back in pencil Maeve has drawn the same spiral, ending in a small curl with a scatter of dots beside it. Underneath, in her cramped hand, she has written: wait for the open end. You put the kettle on and do not turn the light off.