The Night the Year Turned
Yennayer, and the pot has seven things in it.
Snow against the door.
Red on the floor for luck,
tied in the dark months, finished by the fire.
On the twelfth of January the Amazigh year turns, and in the villages above Khenifra it turns over a pot of seven vegetables and a floor as red as the family can manage. Red is for the year ahead: for the lambs, the rain, the daughter who is marrying in spring. This rug was made for that night and for the nights like it, which is why the red is so deep and so even. She dyed the wool in madder, twice, and knotted it through the dark months so it would be ready when the year was.
It is lighter than most Beni M'Guild of its size, which means it was finely done, the knots close rather than coarse, and the two centimetre pile has worn to a soft, dense nap. Forty Januaries have taken the red toward crimson. In a room of pale stone and dark wood it is the one thing that announces itself, and it does so without raising its voice.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.