One long sentence

It is fall and I am aware that I could fall, could slip on the rocks which are shiny and cool and which step down towards the valley floor, or on the sticks and leaves and pebbles that make a trail, treacherous and worn; and I pay attention to what is underfoot and not to the sunlight that finds the spaces in between the leaves and not to the leaves that move lightly in a light breeze, and not to colours splashed through the trees or to the water that clings here and there, splashed by yesterday’s rain; I pay attention instead to the edges of each step, to bumps and imperfections and the places where my ankle could betray me and I pay attention to the little slips and I wonder if I should clutch at the trees or simply bump down on my bum like a child, unsteady on my feet, but that won’t do because I am not a child and it is fall but I am not falling; I am climbing down to find myself deeper in the woods and deeper in the valley and more than this, I am descending on my feet, keeping my head and my balance so that, as the ground evens slightly, I will lift my head and see the trees as they close around me and hear the birds and the leaves and the rustling of life around me and in me and my heart will beat faster and my spine will stretch to hold my head up as a mother holds her baby to the skies and claims a blessing.