Ghosts of the morning

Out on my walk this morning, it was frosty. I was bundled up warm walking on the path along the river. Up ahead of me a bird lighted on the bitumen. It was a darker black than the leaves around it. A second later, the shape in the forest behind the bird moved. I stared at it, seeing something and then nothing. As I walked closer the shape of a deer started to become defined. And then another one. 

Within a second and in utter quiet the two deers danced away, the whites of their tails indicating the movements. And they were gone, like they had never been there. All that was left was in me. A sense of wonder at the grace and poise with which these animals exhibited.