The Pink the Frost Could Not Reach
March, and the almond trees took the risk first.
Pink against black branches, snow still on the pass.
She dyed the wool before the petals fell,
and the frost never found it.
The almond trees in the valleys below the cedar country flower in March, which is too early, and every year some of them lose the gamble to a late frost. The women watch them from the roofs. There is a week when the branches are still black, the pass is still white, and the whole lower valley is pink, and it is the first colour anyone has seen since October. This rug was dyed in that week, or in the memory of it. Pink across three metres of wool, two fingers deep, with the Beni M'Guild lattice drawn through it so lightly it looks like the shadow of branches on snow.
It was a bride's rug, almost certainly, because nobody ties pink this generous for an ordinary floor. Forty years have warmed it towards rose, the way a cheek warms, and the pile has settled to the softness of something slept on. It sits now in a room with grey walls and one good chair, and it is the only colour in the room, and that is enough.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.