This is the weather of December 2012. The final entry of The Weather. In 2012, actress, poet, filmmaker, artist Melora Walters recorded the weather each day in her own unique way. The entries will be published once a week, covering one month each time.
Read: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November
***
12.1.12
Dark
Cold
Rain at night
the glass of the car
reflects the oncoming lights
and goes white
I cannot see.
*
12.2.12
Rain continues
Christmas tree tied on top of the car
at home
as always
I put an owl on top
at night I walk the dogs
through the pines
and the owl calls.
*
12.3.12
The hopelessness
despair. fear
starts in the morning.
It moves fast
through the rain drops.
There is nothing wet about it.
It cuts.
It’s dry
and it winds around and strangles.
not the snake of yoga.
*
12.4.12
The sun has come out again.
It cuts away the gray
and the fog dissipates
like the back window
with the defrost on.
Coyotes last night on the hill.
Their fear in different directions
from the rain and hunger.
*
12.5.12
And on Wednesday,
there is nothing.
The rain has withdrawn
plants curve down and under
to ask why.
The old dog is dying.
In the morning it is dark.
At night it is dark.
A rat was in the garage.
Drove through the clouds
that rested on the mountain
and down into the lake,
rolled down windows
to smell them:
leather, wood, earth,
sassafras from stream
water lily breath thickness
of the heavens primal.
*
12.6.12
The green tree with the green trunk makes the air green.
The kitchen knife is so sharp.
The holes in the house have been patched, and traps set.
The cold air lies down to hibernate
and gather its strength.
I sit beneath small trees
the traffic sounds behind me
but I am surrounded by green
and browns from a tertiary color wheel
invisible, camouflaged like a snake or deer
who stops silently and you do not see it
until you have stepped on it.
*
12.7.12
The sun is out
but the air is cold.
The old dog stole the cornbread
and the others ate the crumbs
off the floor, licked it clean.
The air is still on the freeway
as though it stopped.
The blue whitened with a lead
white that weighs it down,
like the bottom of a net
in the sea, open to catch
metallic finned fish,
one way in one direction
the other in the other.
*
12.8.12
The house is immersed in cloud.
There are no trees,
only soft smudged white.
*
12.9.12
Today the old dog died.
We knew it was coming.
Last night he stood and stared at nothing
in different parts of the house-
his tail curled between and beneath his legs-
his back legs bending down,
the tremors inside,
his eyes with the milky way inside the cornea
looking and looking.
At 5 am he walked around my room
in circles panting.
Before we went to bed
my children looked with the same sad eyes,
children who want nothing to die,
and asked if I would, was, when
going to put him down. Tomorrow.
Sunday. Today. at 10:30 am
I held him as he left
I put my head into him
fighting fur around his neck
as he leapt off the table and ran
into the woods, mountains,
chasing skunk, coyote, deer.
I hear continual church bells in the distance.
*
12.10.12
Another day.
The nights are hardest
saddest without the dog.
One house has trees with dried red leaves
curling edges as they fall, and crackle
like thrown away pieces of paper
scattered beneath the table.
Death is dry.
*
12.11.12
The crickets sing as it gets dark.
2 coyote came down from the hill
and waited at the front door.
The dogs went crazy as we walked home,
the coyote ran at the last minute-
bigger than the dogs.
*
12.12.12
Slight wind last night-
brought in the gray and heaviness
of possible rain.
The garbage man comes and takes all of it away.
He smiles and waves, no questions asked,
let go of everything and he takes it away.
Cold.
I wear a coat inside.
At night the pine trees
are made of smudged charcoal.
*
12.13.12
The day went away.
In the morning
I tried to start right,
but it kept going,
I could not catch it.
*
12.14.12
Rain.
forecasts of possible
rain,
always waiting for it
the air cold in the morning
the scents strong
that pull the dogs
to the side and into the bushes.
Again I try to start with the day,
over and over.
*
12.15.12
Rain last night
but now cold sun.
Cold miserable sun
that gives life
in an infinity of darkness.
Now that the old dog is gone
the cat sits with the other two,
all the doors are open.
There is a wind.
*
12.16.12
The leaves hang like large cocoons,
bats upside down, sleeping,
wrapped in their wings.
*
12.17.12
Gray.
pieces of rain in the morning.
I saw an x-ray of one of my hips
perfectly formed
one half of a butterfly
the lines of the bones
to trace them to find
the beginning of the sea shell
or the ocean.
*
12.18.12
Pouring rain when it was still dark,
and then again when it was slight-
now bright sunshine.
The clouds are too white,
thick and full
mountains in a blue
cerulean sky
under the trees
the wind blows
threatening to knock down
the rise up mountains.
I don’t have much time left
only 13 pages.
*
12.19.12
The wind shook the trees around the house-
leaves hidden in corners-
the house whistled, sang, moaned,
a dying dog
a woman on her knees
keening for all the loss
until it is all gone
get it out
shaken like an old carpet
until it can weave again
to let it begin again.
*
12.20.12
Bright sun but cold
biting through clothes cold
and deadly in the shade.
Horse shoe prints in dried mud.
Small brown birds make noises
larger than they are in the dry
leaves beneath the brush.
Holes in the earth
that animals have made.
Nothing is stable within the earth
the molten core hardening, a ball,
magnetic, larger than the moon,
and the winds that seem to come and go
but are a mass of constantly moving air
of mountain and valley invisible,
nothing, not one thing, is still,
nothing to hold on to,
nothing safe,
the earth is not only moving
but spins on an axis.
This is life.
*
12.21.12
Winter Solstice
End of the world
Cold
no rain. no wind.
just cold
*
12.22.12
The steam comes out of the blue teapot
like thick white clouds, unfurling fast-
the curls that emerge from the Samurai’s
horses nose in the panting.
A vertical landscape
clouds moving up
across the sky
propelled by wind
a broiling interior
encased in metal above a flame.
*
12.23.12
Cold.
Watching signs-
hold my breath
to see
how bad it might be.
*
12.24.12
breakdown
complete
breakdown
confession
dancing with my children
walk around the reservoir at night
slept with a bear
next to my dogs
unexpected
*
12.25.12
Cold.
Christmas.
presents
and my daughter crying
at the end of the day-
the build up never matches.
*
12.26.12
Cold again-
rain through the night
but sun in the day.
2 yellow roses
heads fallen
headache in the right
reptilian in the back
Sushi.
4 people in a row
so many people outside
look at things.
*
12.27.12
The wind blew the towels off the line.
The dogs bark at nothing.
The washer leaks,
the dryer does not dry,
the dishwasher leaves
small black specks on everything.
*
12.28.12
Full moon
diagrams of how chemicals work in the brain:
3:
normal
depression
post traumatic stress
Kali rips the heads off
and wears them as jewels.
*
12.29.12
The air was still and gray this morning
it never became fully light,
and the sky cracked and thundered
roared
then still again
and finally
it, the sky
let loose
poured down
the water
the rain
as though it had been ripped
cracked. a stone vault
metal pieces
to get at the water
to make it let go
or the water had finally built up so much
a slow leak in a cauldron
even a small drip
that cracked the container.
*
12.30.12
Black clouds against the white sky.
A male figure shrouded with a black drape
giant roses red at his left foot.
The second to last day of this book.
The second to last day of the year.
The night was silent,
no insects.
*
12.31.12
Last day of the year
I hold on to the shreds of light
through the screen
but they pull away into the dark
or the dark smothers them
but not so dark
that the fading moon marks the pebble path,
and the trees and the mountains
beyond the fence, that leans down
and then rolls back-
and then I turn this page
to keep writing
because at a certain point the pages end, too
of the book, and the cover closes
and the book stays where it was,
on the bed, on the couch, on the glass table
for a while
because I didn’t want it to end
but it did
and I sit with it,
the morning
of reading to get to the end
but not the end
until it is put on the bookshelf
near other books.
The end of the year
The end of the book
The end of the page
the end.
It was cold today.
There was a slight wind.
The clouds were thick.
The morning gilded the mountains in gold,
for a moment, until the crows flew past
and it melted down into the cold ground
to lie with the rain.
2 owls.