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.

***

1.1.12

3:30 am

Huge stag at the side of the road,
the curve up from the bridge.
There was another deer at his side.

Cold then, but now warm.
The heat is not turned on in the house.
Outside in the sun, it feels good.

*

1.2.12

NUMINOUS

It’s hot again today.

There is a wind.
It is Isis breathing magic
into the dead bodies.
Old sticks.

The arsonist strikes at 2 am,
takes a break,
and back at 4 or 3 am.

I HAVE REACHED
THE CROSSROADS
OF THE DEER’S HEAD

*

1.3.12

Birds filled certain trees,
hundreds of them,
so that they seemed alive,
the trees.

The birds were small
leaves, that flew.

Three giant birds circled overhead
Turkey Vultures-
No-
Golden eagles.

Not as hot as yesterday.

*

1.4.12

hot.

windy last night.

*

1.5.12

strange wind.
and heat.
but cold
enough to
need a sweater

*

1.6.12

The air is cold.
The soil is wet
as though it had been watered
last night.

There is a wavering between despair and potential.

*

1.7.12

The mist came in last night.
The mountains are barely visible.
The soil is wet and outside in the pines
there is a spotted sound-
water that drips
and yet there is no rain.
As though something is happening in the pines
and the birds sing overlapping to create
a tightly woven blanket.
The blanket still on the clothesline,
wet from mist

2 crows called as it got light
because for the first time yesterday
I cleaned the entire home, dawn to night
on my knees. I experience it as a different place
than before-

I can feel Holland.
the green is the Jardin des Tuileries
and Belgium which is dune and pine
mist. dark. overgrown cemetery
where I first saw the saints and relics
and photos in glass boxes
where Weverbergh wrote Gilgamesh
and Inanna emerged from my Arabian birth,
combined with French Film, modern art. and
my favorite museum-The Kröller Müller-
this. is. it. I love it. This is what I wanted.

*

1.8.12

Cold last night.
Cold this morning.
Very few birds.

A frog is somewhere near.

*

1.9.12

Warmer today.

There is a coyote
that walks through the street
during the day,
and sits in one spot on the hill,
it responds to “coyote” and whistling.

The moon is full tonight.

*

1.10.12

It’s cold.

An invoice for December 24 for
1 latte grn whole millk
at the Los Angeles Airport.
Paid with cash.

-moved a rosebush
it was getting stepped on
pushed against.

planted Bird of Paradise
from a cutting the neighbor gave me
4 months ago.
There are new roots but the leaves are so splayed
I don’t know if it will make it.

Three coyote on the side of the road.
No. Fear.

*

1.11.12

The water runs clear
through the sieve
of the sand.

It’s cold.
The sun came through as gray,
as though peering into bones
like an mri machine.
No where to hide.

Someone down the street is
trimming their pine tree.
Branches of green softness
are piling up on the ground below
like hair
fluffs of green hair
green clouds.
I want to jump on them.

*

1.12.12

6:18 am
still dark.
cold.
windy.

The moon was not out this morning.
It was still dark, as the night was on the other
side of the hill-

a different night-

a mirror of the night.

*

1.13.12

The wind is soft.
waves. like waves.
calm ones on
the ocean.

Last night there was a snake
in the bathroom, long and black
thin with many coils.
It was stunned.
The cats watched from the counter
as we got it back outside.

It wasn’t there this morning.

*

1.14.12

The air is moving.

It’s quiet.

8:49 am

The owl is calling
and another
calls back.

*

1.15.12

The light is filtered.
No sound.

-which creates
a terrible heaviness.

*

1.16.12

Bleak.

*

1.17.12

Everything is quiet.

The light is intense-
but it’s cold.

Trees with white flowers-
a scent is not a scent-
more a smell or sensation
like a powder
flour thickening in the air.

*

1.18.12

The sun is reflected from one window
in a house on a hill.

Cold today.

*

1.19.12

Cold.

Suet-
that’s what the white blossom trees
smell like.

*

1.20.12

Cold.

Helicopters everywhere.

*

1.21.12

Rain.

I am happy.

*

1.22.12

The rain is gone.
dark clouds.
but then
only the sun.

*

1.23.12

From 6:30 am to 7 am
it goes from dark to sunlight.

Rain.

Relief.

Chinese New Year
Water Dragon.
Kung Hei Fat Choi-
May prosperity be with you.

The flag on top of a house
is frayed. One stripe flies
on it’s own in the wind.

The glass bulb on top
of the old street light
is tipped over.

*

1.24.12

Windy.

Cold.
The heater is blasting
the house whistles
between the heat.

The earth is still dark
from the rain.

*

1.25.12

The seed has to die
for the flower to be born.

Who said that?

*

1.26.12

warmer today

The air smells wet.

The trees with small white flowers
are dropping the petals,
some have blown into the back yard,
small solidified raindrops of milk-
white splats from a paintbrush-
small pieces of paper
illegible microscopic fortunes
from fortune cookies-
miniature white butterflies.

*

1.27.12

A small broken leaf
that looked like a brown moth’s
wing with a striation of dark brown.

Votive Candle burns,
the smell of Church.

*

1.28.12

A flock of birds
flew in one direction
turned
and flew in the other.

*

1.29.12

Very Sunny.

Wind in the hills,
but not below.

The thought that
just as a civilization
evolves from a barbaric history-
a human can evolve in that way,
too.
it allows for understanding.
forgiveness.
growth.

*

1.30.12

cold this morning

*

1.31.12

On the other side of the fence
where all the trees surround the lake,
for a moment there was a figure
who looked cloaked with head bowed
and hands, palm out in the dark
miraculous mother
a saint
but it was only a dead tree
human height trunk.

(Featured image is a painting by the author called “Odin’s Ravens’ Song #4.”)