The Whole Tent, Wall to Wall
Wider than the door, longer than the night.
Cream wool, and the brown of the one dark ewe.
Everyone slept here,
and nobody was cold.
Over four metres by two: this was the floor of an entire tent. The Beni Ourain moved with their flocks between the summer heights and the winter valleys, and the big rug went with them, rolled on a mule, unrolled wherever the tent went up, so that every new camp had the same floor. Children learned to walk on it. Guests were seated at its edge. At night the family lay down along its length, and twenty-four kilos of cream wool kept the frozen ground where it belonged.
The years have been gentle. The cream has mellowed to the colour of unbleached linen, the brown lozenges have kept their line, and the pile, a good two centimetres, has the dense evenness of wool that has been walked on with love. In a house it becomes the floor of the biggest room: an open-plan living space, a long family kitchen, a studio.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.