Oleander by the Dry River
The river is a ribbon of stones by June.
Only the oleander keeps going, pink and stubborn,
all the way down the bed.
She wove the one thing still in bloom.
By June the rivers of the Tadla are ribbons of white stone, and the only colour left in them is the oleander, which grows in the dry bed and blooms pink and stubborn through the whole hot summer when everything else has given up. A Boujad weaver walks past it every day on the way to the well. This rug is that walk: a deep rose from end to end, with the town's loose, free geometry drawn across it like the shadows of the branches on the stones.
It is a smaller Boujad, under three metres, with a full two centimetre pile that has stayed soft through forty years and a pink that has deepened rather than tired. It is the right size for a bedroom or the space in front of a sofa, in a room with white walls and one green plant, where it will bloom the way the oleander does: without asking anyone.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.