TO WALK ON ART
Hamadan, sirouk, bokhara—
such rugs can take a year
or more to weave.
Colored
with vegetable dyes, the hues
intensify and blend the more
the rugs are used.
A royal
bokhara requires three hundred
hand-tied knots per square
inch.
Conceding that only God
is perfect, the weavers tie
the first knot wrong by choice
My father dealt in oriental
rugs and knew each type
by name.
He saw them all
as more than goods.
Sculptures
and paintings were made to be seen,
but rugs for him were usefully
beautiful.
Often after decades
he would buy back rugs
from their original owners
for the price paid or more.
He walked on oriental rugs
with care as if in tribute
to the weavers who went beyond
art for art’s sake to make
what turned more beautiful with wear.