Heavy as a Sack of Barley
Nineteen kilos on the mule's back,
the same as a sack of grain.
The man who carried it to market
did not know which was worth more.
When a Beni M'Guild rug goes down the mountain to market it goes on a mule, rolled and roped, and this one weighs what a sack of barley weighs, nineteen kilos, a great deal of wool for a pile worn to a centimetre. That weight is the story. The knots are packed close, the yarn is thick, and the rug was made to last the life of the house it was tied for, which it has. It is undyed, the cream and brown of the flock, with the lattice drawn in the darker wool, long and generous, the kind of plain, quiet, deeply made piece the Beni M'Guild tie when they are not in the mood for purple.
Forty years have softened the pile and warmed the cream, with the honest marks of a long life in the photos. It lies now in a townhouse in Antwerp, on dark oak boards in a room with a tall window and a single black lamp, and it does not move, because nothing that heavy needs to.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.