The Rug

 

for Annie

I've always liked this rug

since you first showed it to me.

Its reds and blacks call

to the heart and the will

as clearly as a native American dance

before a great journey,

hunt or battle.

I see men

stomping the earth

around a fire

encouraged by their ululating women.

But then

the patterns pull me away

from the night and human noises

into big spaces

--mountains rising above mountains,

diamonds sparkling on high waters,

crosses pointing to the four directions.

Within these patterns

more colors emerge

... white, beige and at least five shades of gray.

I particularly like the latter,

as if some medicine man

collaborated with the weaver

to remind us

not to be so quick to judge

but rather

to welcome subtlety, nuance, uncertainty

and contradiction,

to walk in the world as if

either danger or wonder

could confront us

beyond the next rock or tree,

to be steady, strong and fully awake

as we place each foot forward,

to be ready and willing

to live whatever

there is to live.

So, yes, my darling, I like this rug very much.

It's the placement I've had a problem with

as you know...

here in the kitchen

where it gets walked on

kicked and

dirtied up with dog hair and vegetable cuttings.

Still

you want it here.

You

don't want it hanging on the wall.

It's sturdy. You're not worrying over dirt.

I usually defer to your taste

but this is a loose rug that slides and folds.

It has felt like an accident waiting to happen.

It has also felt disrespectful to the weaver

and the poem in the patterns.

Part of me wants to dig in and fight this out.

But I have decided

to embrace the placement of the rug

for one reason.

Because it makes you feel good

to have it under foot,

to see it when you enter the kitchen,

to make sure one of us engages

in a weekly ritual of cleaning.

I want you to feel good.

You deserve to feel good.

We will dance together around the symbolic fire

woven in the reds.

What could matter more?

So if you or I trip, I will not go to "I told you so".

I will not allow this rug to become a field

where our two inner children skirmish

over whose needs are more important.

I embrace the placement of the rug

fully

and, as the saying goes, without reservation.

With this commitment

I entertain another possibility

--that I might not have paid so much attention

might not have seen the pictures and heard the stories in the rug

were it not constantly under foot.

Just as, now,

standing in its middle, looking down,

I wonder at the white twinings that extend from each end of the fabric

...reaching forward and back

as if the rug itself

is a sacred between

connecting past with future

earth with sky

water with wind

love with learning

all shades of gray

with each other

and, most important,

me

with you.

C 2011 Bob Kamm