This piece took shape during the days of the January 2026 protests in Iran — days when I was far from Iran, yet my mind and my heart were, at every moment, with those who took to the streets and cried out for all of us; days when the streets mourned thousands of lives lost.

At the heart of this heavy grief and restrained anger, something kept burning within me — an anger I sometimes believed had gone out for a moment, yet from the depths of my being, it would flare up again.

For the thousands of lives lost during the January 2026 protests.

For the children of the Minab school, killed only one month later, in the midst of war.

For a cypress that wanted to become a song — that cypress which, in Persian literature, is a symbol of freedom, resistance, and eternity.

Hanna Mesgari

Paris, February 2026