Intimate close in falling snow: the man's hand pressed flat over his own chest, jaw set, eyes patient and hurting, breath visible, the mule's rein looped forgotten around his wrist.Composed through a half-opened courtyard gate: white radiance pours out across the man in the saffron-striped coat, who has stopped mid-sentence with one hand still raised in complaint, face lifted and completely undone.Close on a Shirazi man of forty in a saffron-and-white striped cotton coat and soft green tunic, white cloth wound at his head…Cold white winter morning, wide: the same man in the saffron-striped coat halts under a cypress avenue banked with snow while muleteers…Flat overcast snow-light in a Shiraz bazaar arcade: a seated scribe holds out a folded letter and a small wrapped gift to the man in the saffron-striped coat, who shakes his head gently and looks past both…Bold low angle from the snow at the city wall, steel twilight: a ragged column of soldiers files home with its line split and broken, spears leaning, while the man in the saffron-striped coat watches from the verge…Wide, deep blue evening: the man walks past a lamplit portico where an elderly teacher and his students bend over open Persian manuscripts on low desks…Clear cold night, medium close: the rein slips from the man's opened hand as he sits at a roadside brazier among strangers, an old woman, a boy and a carter, all their faces warm in the coals.
