When the Pomegranates Split
Late October, and the fruit cracks on the tree.
Red inside, red on the hands,
red in the pot with the madder.
She tied the season down before it ended.
The pomegranates split on the tree in late October above Khenifra, and for a fortnight everything is that colour: the fruit, the children's fingers, the dye pot where the madder root has been simmering since dawn. The weaver who made this rug was working in that fortnight. You can tell, because the red is not the formal red of a wedding rug but the warm, slightly orange red of a thing that has been eaten in the sun. It is almost square for a Beni M'Guild, nearly three metres by two, the shape of a room rather than a corridor.
It is heavy for its size, which means the knots are many and close, and the two centimetre pile has worn to a deep, even softness over forty years. The red has moved toward rust at the edges, as it should. Put it under a round table in a kitchen with white tiles, or in a bedroom with linen the colour of the inside of the fruit.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.