POINT OF NO RETURN

I knew a ridge of hills which, when it met the sea, curved grassy-sloped out of sight where, somewhere
the cliff began,
rising abruptly from the breaking waves 400 feet below.
You could have run down the slope -
wilder and faster the steeper it got -
until sudden nothingness took away your breath for good.

I knew each time we passed that place
on our walks across the downs,
there was a point of no return,
and sometimes,
lying in my childhood bed,
I sensed its fatal pull.

And now awake and more aware, I know I'm on that slope
and have been all my life.
It's steepening underneath my feet
and every step I take with care,
my eye marking out ahead a flower, a blade of grass taller than the rest or something else to signify a point that's reached and passed.
One day I will, I know, take a step and slip,
and fall,
and reaching out grasp the air to hold me back, and when my fingers close, the air will let them go.

Will the wind shout in my ears
that I'm dying now -
or will it be a whisper
I can hardly hear?