A man of about fifty — lean, weathered Zagros face, deep-set dark Persian eyes, ink-stained right hand, madder-and-indigo woven wool cloak, pine-viridian turban…His ink-stained right hand, close and tactile at frame-centre, fingers slightly curled as they brush the tips of scattered wild mountain flowers — small saffron and apricot blooms on a pine-viridian hillside…His open palm pressed flat against a tall stone wall — ancient Zagros limestone, rough and cold, painted in deep violet and slate-grey overlapping planes — fingers splayed, the ink-stains vivid against the pale stone…His lean figure from close behind and slightly to the side — madder-and-indigo cloak pulled tight by mountain wind, pine-viridian turban-cloth streaming…Extreme close: his face in the last horizontal ember light, tears tracing bright madder lines down his weathered Zagros cheekbones — but the grief is not collapse; his ink-stained right hand is raised before him…His face lifted to the open mountain sky, mouth open in song — the vow of joy — warm ochre and cobalt evening light on his weathered features, eyes bright with jubilant faith…He crests a Zagros ridge — small figure against an enormous blazing horizontal shaft of last sun, painted as a wide column of white-gold and saffron light that fills the right half of the frame…Wide — the one punctuation frame — the crumbling caravanserai seen from high on the mountain path, tiny and below: its broken mud-brick walls now small, warm ochre shapes in the deep valley…
