A tree by a river, and a river by a mountain and clouds up on the mountains and a photgrapher facing the scene, opening our view through the vertical window of the photograph to this landscape. But nowhere in this still photo is motionless. Not only the tree, but the photographer’s hands have not been spared from the relentless assault of the wind. Even the camera’s flash did not come to the photographer’s aid to freeze the scene. The photographer’s hand has trembled, just like the tree’s body. — The wind once shook my body and umbrella like this, and I remember that we had taken shelter with strangers at a corner, and it was there they said, "Your umbrella is dead." — My umbrella, just like this tree, was brittle and broken; I hope this tree has not broken. The summit of the vast hill in the background and the clouds that have entered its domain are intertwined with the tree’s body and branches. I wish the tree could lean on the hill just as, in the photograph, the steadfast hills have become its support: like a head resting peacefully on a pillow and hair disheveled on it. Or perhaps: "Where the cypress of the garden runs with wooden feet, we too shall make that slender cypress dance."^*

^*Koliat-e Saadi, Mosleh-od-Din Saadi, edited by Mohammad Ali Foroughi, 1385 (2006), First Edition, Hermes Publications. Ghazals, p. 532