Neo-traditional tattoo of a yellow bird flying out of an open birdcage, with a ribbon and the words Still Rise on a banner, on the calf.

Yellow bird leaving an open birdcage

Neo-trad · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A yellow bird with outstretched wings flies out of an open birdcage, with a black-outlined ribbon curling above and a shaded banner below reading Still Rise in script lettering. The bird is filled with warm yellow and orange tones, while the cage, ribbon and banner are rendered in black linework with grey shading. The design fills the frame diagonally on a smooth area of skin.

Neo-trad Calf Bird Birdcage Ribbon Banner Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

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The canary went out of the cage at Brentford this morning, and I didn't chase him. Don't write back telling me I should have. You always said he was the only thing on this boat with any sense, and I suppose he has more than I do, sitting in his brass cage going round and round the cabin while the tow lines creak and the kettle sulks on the stove.

Dad painted STILL RISE across the cabin side the summer we bought the Mary Lowe, in those black letters with the grey shading he copied off a sign-writer in Hull. He said a barge was only ever a boat that had decided to keep going. When he died the cabin went damp and the paint peeled at the corners, but the words held, and every morning I fed the bird in front of them and told myself it was a kind of prayer. The cage door never caught properly. I just never tried it.

Then this morning the lock-keeper's boy came aboard to ask about the coal, the cage swung, the door swung with it, and the bird was out before either of us could decide anything. He went straight up over the towpath, yellow as a lamp, and settled in the willows at the bend. The boy said he'd fetch the net. I told him to leave it. I stood on the deck with the empty cage in my hand, light as a biscuit tin, and found I was looking at the painted letters rather than the sky.

I'm selling the Mary Lowe in April. The buyer from Oxford wants her as a houseboat, and the letters can go with her or be scraped off, I don't mind which. I've kept the cage. Come and see it when you're down, and bring your brown coat for the wet.

Nell