I see the space station passing over, and I wave, and think about all the silent machines above me. Orbit is a controlled fall – I remember that. An endless downwards hurtle, but with just enough forward momentum to keep from hitting the ground. Freefall. I think about satellites, and how this barely controlled freefall is the only way that they can fulfill their purpose. I think some people are like satellites: we also live out our lives in freefall.

Satellite people, that’s us. We’re the ones who always say the wrong thing to the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time. We didn’t get the Rulebook for Human Interaction that the others got given at birth, or soon after. Or if we did, we never read it – discipline was never our strong point.

People in freefall Get It Wrong, often. We’re good at self-justification, and we tell ourselves that she doesn’t really love him, that our unhappy childhoods are to blame, that our badness makes us interesting. We never got the hang of sensible, grown-up love - our bodies shake, our souls twist and burn inside our limbs, and we open our big mouths, and the only thing we can keep down is Jim Beam and dry toast, because we don’t know if it’s all going to be OK, now we’ve spoken.  In all probability, we’re never going to know.

We live our whole lives in freefall, people like us, but with just enough forward momentum to keep us alive. And we are alive – ****** and embarrassed and scared, but alive. It’s when we feel nothing, that’s when people like us hit the ground.

The dog and me, we'll find the sea
And run beside the waves
I'll slip on stones, he'll hunt for bones
Beside the sea, the dog and me.

Beside a fire, burning higher
Than any human pain could be
We'll slowly sleep, as embers leap,
And sorrows won't exist for me.

I'll find a dog as lost as me
And offer him my bones.
And if he loves me, tired and small,
We'll share a life, our love, our all.

The dog and me, we'll find the sea
That washes broken love away.
I'll wake for him; he'll wait for me.
We'll always be; the dog and me.

if the stone could speak
it would say to the wind
cease this restless seeking
and stay awhile with me

but the stone cannot speak
and the wind rushes on
to the faraway forest;
it dances with the trees

A soul is heat for the body: sometimes a warm inner blanket, occasionally a scorching sublimation of white-hot blood. When a soul is lost, its body grows cold and slow.

My soul was missing, neglected through lack of use. It had left to seek a more hospitable host. Yours was burning visible funeral fires for the loss of love: your hurt was a beacon. Your fire-soul surrounded your skin, a thin blue haze of flickering pain. Your inside was cracking with frightened ice. I caught the sparks from your skin-fire and they kindled a new soul in me.

As my body became warm again, your funeral-fire burned dry. You grew cold and still. You held me for the comfort of warmth, for movement. You kissed me, and the kiss ****** my sublime soul out of my mouth and into your bones, your lungs, your heart.

Our shared soul-fire is now yours alone to hold; my mouth still burns, but my blood and bones are cold.

We recognize each other, the lost ones. In Mexico the orange flowers – flor de muertos - glow as soft lamps in the gloom, calling the lost dead home. We see the same glow – it’s a fire, but cold and slow - in the living lost. And so we know.

The way we describe love-pain – it’s all wrong. An injured heart doesn’t shatter, like volcanic obsidian. It grows, like lava. Under pressure, it becomes heavy and dense and hot.

The weight of an injured heart anchors us to the earth. The mass confers upon us visibility to others. The heat draws creatures to our side. Love-pain connects us, even as we feel we must hide. Love-pain is lava; it changes the landscape as it burns. An injured heart is not weak and brittle. It is the rawest Earth; it is furious creation.

A human heart becomes obsidian only upon death, when the body cools and stills. All we leave behind, in the tumbling soil, is the black mirror, through which those that follow us divine their future love.

Capture my love with a harp and a bow
Sing high for my heart
but to shoot me, aim low.

"Protect this man", I asked the trees,
"who rides through dale and dell,
and send a message on the breeze:
a whisper that he's well."

I asked the wind to carry far
the words I couldn't speak:
"I miss your heart beside my hearth
yet wish you all you seek."

I asked the waves to take this lore
across the rainy sea
and lay it on some distant shore:
"Remember - love - be free."

Engage me then, Fortune. I know of your plans
to threaten my home, my life and my land.
How close dare you get before I take this shot?
My feet are unsteady, but my aim is not.

Come stand with your feeble battalion before me.
I know all your moves now and frankly, you bore me.
Surround me with multiple lines of attack:
small as I am, I can kick higher than that.

Let the snow fall. It settles where it will,
over broken rocks and the ancient hill
(the burial mound of all we once held dear).
Snow obscures the path. Everything's new from here.