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Ehsan kosha
writer
From the Voice of Trees, From the Voice of Stone
What a camera captures depends on its position.
But what meaning a photograph conveys depends entirely on the photographer behind the lens.
Reality, by itself, holds no meaning without a thoughtful observer.
Yet when a photographer places themselves—and their seeing eye—before it, they grant it meaning.
In this sense, photography becomes an act of meaning-making.
Mahmoud Refati has shifted the direction of this photographic gaze.
Rather than capturing the image of an object, he places the object itself on display.
He looks at nature with a searching, inquisitive eye—carving into the branches of trees to reveal a concept hidden within.
A concept whose range of meaning is vast and rich in potential for interpretation.
Refati’s works may not be the first of their kind, but they are undoubtedly unique.
His curious gaze seems as though it is seeking sculptures already embedded within the trees themselves—
trees that, as Rumi said, “We are listeners, seers, and full of joy,”
waiting for a moment to reveal their secrets.
The essence of his work is in seeing—like a photographer—
placing himself in a position where he can witness the secret of a branch.
It is about perceiving the sculpture not merely as a product of imagination, but as already latent in the dry, tangled movement of natural wood.
And then, with minimal intervention—through slight trimming and shaping—he leads the natural form toward the meaning he envisions.
A comparable example might be found in the works of Darvish Khan Esfandiarpour in the Stone Garden of Balvard.
If one believes in a spirit within nature, this might well be called the spirit of the desert—
a presence that manifests in such works, drawing forth beauty and meaning from what otherwise seems dry, inert, and meaningless
M.A
teacher
The Ballad-Singer of Wood
(A poetic tribute to Mahmoud Refati)
I believe they blamed our mother Eve for a sin she never committed.
For the soul breathed into humanity from the beginning was curious, restless, and full of longing.
It could not bear the calm of Paradise—its honeyed streams and shade-giving trees.
So, it descended to earth in search of the Fountain of Khidr, to quench its thirst with the water of life.
And so, from that moment onward, “Adam” and his children ceaselessly, tirelessly, plunged their heads into every crevice, poked their fingers into every crack—
from the edges of the galaxies to the depths of the oceans,
from desert rocks to thorny plains,
from the density of forests to the sparseness of deserts,
from the depths of soil to the heights of the heavens,
from the grove to the root.
This child of Adam and Eve knows no rest.
What is it that he seeks?
And who is it he chases, this wanderer in the land of estrangement?
He seeks refuge—
sometimes in brush and pigment: he paints, he creates.
Sometimes in wire and wood: he plays, he builds.
Sometimes in stone: he carves, he shapes.
Sometimes behind the veil of cinema: he directs, he dazzles.
Sometimes in ink and quill: he writes, he versifies, he illuminates.
Sometimes he transcends space.
Sometimes he captures existence in a magical little box.
And then there is this one—
who sees in twigs and roots what most do not.
How is it that, in a burnt palm-root, he sees a swan—and in it, serenity?
In a branch fallen in a remote desert, a bird with wings spread—and in it, flight?
In two pieces of wood reconnecting at the edge of a severed branch—he sees a mother’s embrace, a child seeking refuge?
In a fragment of wood discarded on a roadside, he sees greed.
In an uprooted root, he sees pride.
In a cut-off secondary branch, he sees woman.
He sees the tree in all its states:
In its standing tall, its winter sleep or death.
In spring, its blossoming green.
In summer, its fruit-giving and generosity.
In autumn, its turning shades, its fading beauty—until at last, it sheds its leaves.
He listens to the tree, even as it dries and falls to the earth.
It speaks to him of power and fate, of protest and destiny, of captivity and love…
And I—
I have seen him, working on these dry pieces of wood.
Love rains from his hands.
Tenderness shines from his eyes.
He stands—
and he smiles, and he weeps.
Smiles and tears of a father watching the growing strength of his young.
He listens—
like a lover to the murmur of a waterfall.
He speaks—
as one in intimate conversation with a beloved.
And he touches—
as a gardener caresses the first bud on a newborn sapling.
Mahmoud Refati, like those before him, those yet to come, and those who pass unseen—
seeks himself,
in the branches and roots of trees.
Or so I believe.
Mojtaba Shol
writer
There exists a land where if its roots are torn out, countless doors will rise from its soil.
One of those doors is held by a man who gave his heart… Dar-de-didār, dār-dār…
This is not the dry skin of a tombak drum—it is the scream of a door whose throat itches from suffocation, rupture, and solitude…
It is a door’s cry, torn into patches so its heart-sparks scatter across the heads of passersby in dead alleys.
And Mahmoud slept for six nights and days, and when he woke, he emerged from the dream of a door whose translation of heart-sparks stole sleep from his eyes…
Dar-de-didār, dār-dār…
This translation is a sign, a verse from the no-place tongue of the door, which—liberated from the demon—has given itself over to fragments of revival.
Listen closely to the delchubehā (heart-sparks)…
“One cannot live without the crimson wine.”
And the pious pretender? — Laq laq laq…!
This is my cracked language, a door spoken in the accent of unspeakability:
I have poured out from the jar of Khayyam into the body of a goblet, so the grass of Iran’s soil might hear me lament over the tombs, the arrows, and the colorless boards…
The Muslim and the Magian alike, barren and faded…
This was not the joyful garment of Iran.
This was not the peace of the lions’ forest.
These are the delchubehā of a door that never spun on the hinge of hope through the long dark night.
Its body became a canvas of blood-red marks.
Yet it did not wail in mourning…
These scorched delchubehā are no elegy for any land.
These are the voices of those walking dead alleys… waking up.
Listen to the delchubehā, step by step with Mahmoud, who gave his heart…
Dar-de-didār, dār-dār…
Najme Normandipour
writer
The Resurrection of Human Transfigurations
From the mud-stained bodies of roots
that had turned to wood,
that had withered,
that in a dizzying reincarnation of solitude
were awakened by the verses of Khayyam—
their worn brown bodies
within the thick haze of cigarette smoke
fused with the steaming breath of coffee beans,
and from the illusion of a creator, a form was born—
to become the remnants
of a cuckoo’s question
Majid Rafati
tutor
Fractured Silence
To push the silent state of things into crisis—
so that from their cracks and cavities, a voice might emerge:
sometimes the shadow of nothingness,
and sometimes a stance that exposes the disgraced.
Wood always burns from the point closest to the flame—
or from where it is most sensitive to fire—
or perhaps, it becomes fire itself:
to burn and to ignite.
This volatile threshold
is the same restless human condition
worn down by the weight of an exceptional state
Reza Ghods
tutor
Footsteps approached, and he worried — would they see him?
The man stood still. He heard a sound.
He looked around, but no one was there.
He wanted to move on, but the thought of that sound would not release him.
He looked again.
This time, at the ground.
He sat down. A withered, broken branch lay there.
He picked it up and gazed at it—so tenderly, as if he had given new life to that lifeless branch severed from its root.
The branch, which until now had only thought of things like firewood, burning, and ash, suddenly found all its possibilities washed away by the man’s gaze, leaving behind only a single, lingering mystery.
The man rose, shook off the dust, and carried the branch.
He placed it in his car, and the branch fell into a sleep beyond description, full of peace.
When it awoke, the man was brushing it clean of all its earthly stains.
It hurt a little, but the sweetness of enduring pain made it bearable—until it was time for clothing.
The man gently draped a garment like silk, soft as satin, upon the branch.
The branch felt that something important had happened—so important it could hardly comprehend it.
When it saw itself placed upon a shelf beside other branches and roots, it no longer felt alone.
It was so delighted it could neither speak nor think.
After a while, coming to itself, it asked the branches and roots:
“What is this place?”
An old root answered:
“This is eternity.”
From the moment the man joined withered roots and branches to eternity, he himself had become immortal.
Masome Kamkar
poet
Upon his hands they weave their nests,
Upon his shoulders they sing their songs.
He himself does not know
That his bones
Have grown into the likeness of branches.
At times, an axe strikes his side,
And from his wounds
Birds take flight.
But this time,
One of the branches has seen
The shape of a crimson flower,
And fashions a statue, a keepsake for you.
A flower,
Shattered and scattered
In his hands.