The Heaviest Load on the Mule
Autumn, and the family comes down off the high grass.
Tent poles, the kettle, the children.
And one rolled rug, four metres long,
that took two men to lift onto the mule.
In October the Beni M'Guild come down from the summer pastures before the snow closes the passes, and everything the family owns goes onto the mules. The tent poles, the cooking pots, the sacks of wool, the smallest children tied on top. And the rugs, rolled tight and roped, with the biggest one last because it is the heaviest and the mule has to be stood very still for it. This was that rug. Four metres and more of pile tied four centimetres deep, the colour of cedar bark after rain, made to be the whole floor of the tent and the bed of everyone in it, and far too good to leave behind.
It is a rare size for a rug this thick, and it has kept its depth, the kind of pile you sink into rather than stand on. It covers a whole floor now, in a wide living room with pale oak and linen, and the room is warmer for it in every sense the word has.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.