Dark brown tree of life with roots inside a circle, placed in the centre of a woman's upper back, in a botanical linework style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tree of life in a circle on a back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman's bare upper back shows a circular design of a tree with a full canopy and a root system spreading into the lower half of the circle. The design is drawn in fine, dense lines with solid areas, rendered in a single dark brown ink. The tattoo is centred on the back against a maroon open-back top with lace trim, and the head and face are not visible.

Botanical Back Tree of life Tree Root Circle Branches

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, The Hallows orchard went under the digger on Tuesday, all but the old medlar by the gate, which Mr Pryce says he will leave for the sake of the rooks. I have been sitting with a bucket of windfalls since dawn, trying to make jam before the wasps take the lot. The pickers have gone home, and the light now comes in sideways down the apple rows, the way Dad used to say meant the year was turning.

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Yesterday I went down to the lower field with the spade, because the men had lifted the old Bramley and left its roots open on the bank. You would not believe the underneath of it. The roots went out in a great rough ring, as neat as if someone had drawn them with a compass, and where they met the clay they split into threads finer than cotton, running back into the soil like handwriting. I stood in that trench for an hour. Every branch I ever climbed had been holding up a dark wheel of wood below.

I found the biscuit tin Dad buried there in 1987, the one with your christening spoon and the letter he never sent Mum. I did not read the letter. I put the tin back under the roots and packed the clay over it with my hands, the way you would settle a child under a blanket.

Tell Owen the medlar is staying. I will bring you a jar in October, and you can taste what the old ground made of us.