Linen Left Out Overnight
Sheets on the roof, forgotten till morning,
gone the colour of the moon.
She washed the wool the same way
and let the night do the rest.
Washing is done on the roof in Boujad, and now and then a sheet is forgotten up there, and in the morning it has been bleached by the night and the dew to a white that no soap could manage. The wool for this rug had the same patience. It is a Boujad in cream and white, unusual for a town that loves pink, undyed fleece washed in the river and dried until it was as pale as it would go, then knotted deep, two centimetres, into a long, narrow rug with the loose shapes the plains are known for, drawn here in the faintest darker wool so that you see them second, not first.
Forty years have softened the pile to the feel of a good blanket. It lives now in a house by the sea at Comporta, on wide pale boards, running from the bedroom door to the window, where the sand that comes in on bare feet is more or less the same colour.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.