Twenty-Nine Kilos of Red
Red, and then more red,
cream diamonds floating in it like foam,
three fingers of wool
and the whole winter held off.
Twenty-nine kilos. That is what four metres twenty of Zayan wool weighs when it is knotted three centimetres deep, and it tells you what this rug was for: the largest room in a house above Khenifra, the one the whole family slept in when the snow came, with this on the floor and nothing cold getting through it. The ground is red, a warm madder red that goes to rose where the wool has been walked most, and over it float cream diamonds, small and many, like foam on a river.
Forty years have given the red the depth of a good wine and the surface a lustre you can see from the door. It is a serious rug for a serious room, a long living room, a library, a loft, and under bare feet it is the softest thing in the house.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.