The Aubergine Field at Noon
Purple that has stood in the sun,
purple that has learned to be patient.
Row on row she set the diamonds down
like seed in a long field.
There is a moment in late August on the plateau when the heat flattens everything and the only colour left standing is the aubergine in the kitchen garden, glossy and dark against the dust. That is the purple of this rug. The Beni M'Guild made it famous, and every weaver has her own shade of it; this one leaned toward the vegetable rather than the sky, a warm, grounded purple she laid out in long rows of diamonds the way a field is laid out, one furrow after another, to the far edge.
Forty summers have done their work gently. The purple has gone soft at the surface, the way fruit skin does, and the pile is still a good two centimetres, springy and warm. It is a long rug, well over three metres, made for a room with a view: a gallery, a wide landing, the stretch between two tall windows.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.