Colour tattoo of a sunflower, marigold and perched bird down an upper arm, with a swooping bird and FORGIVE ribbon across the shoulder.

Sunflower and bird upper arm with ribbon

Botanical · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large sunflower with a green stem, a marigold bloom and a small bird perched on the stem run down the upper arm. A second bird with outstretched wings sits on the shoulder above a ribbon banner reading FORGIVE. The linework is bold and the shading is soft, with yellows, greens and blue-greys against the skin, and the photo is taken from behind with the tattoos filling most of the frame.

Botanical Neo-trad Upper arm Shoulder Sunflower Bird Flower Stem Ribbon Banner Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had been told the sunflowers would not survive the Fenland winter, so he had not planted them for the winter. He had planted them for Sister Hild, the infirmarian, who stood at the kitchen door each August with her sleeves pushed up and said the garden was all cabbages and penance. The seeds had come in a jar from a novice's cousin in Lincolnshire, and they had come up tall and stubborn along the south wall, their heads turning through the day like a congregation following the bell.

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The marigolds were the infirmary's, grown for salve, and they had spread into the sunflower bed without anyone's leave. Anselm let them stay. A sparrow had taken to the highest stalk in the early mornings, a brown-grey thing with a crooked tail, and it sang its one ugly phrase until the lauds bell drowned it out. He had decided it was the same bird that had nested in the tithe barn the spring old Abbot Wulfric died, and he had decided, too, that this was not a sin to confess.

The quarrel with Brother Cuthbert had lasted eleven years. It concerned a pond, a boundary stone and who had let the goats in. In September Cuthbert came limping along the wall, one hand on his hip, and stood looking up at the flowers for a long time without speaking. Then he picked a marigold, held it to his nose the way he always had, and asked whether the seed heads were ready to save.

Anselm cut the largest sunflower head with his knife and gave it to him, its petals gone to bronze. They sat on the mounting block and cracked the seeds between their teeth while the sparrow watched from the stalk, and neither of them said the word, though it sat between them as plainly as the flower did.