natural adaptations

this is me recounting an event that i witnessed

I was riding my bike home, salt crusted and sunbaked, from a full day at work
and after jeff had left me riding up the hill, i decided to walk.
I walk my bike up this steep hill almost everyday, aside from a moments rest it gives me time to look at a part of my world that i usually narrow-mindedly speed past.
And on this day I realized why.

I started with a fawn
and this grazing fawn balanced some how on spindled legs on an almost impossible slant
I watched the fawn,
in earnest, I stopped walking, stood against my bike and watched this fawn.
and as the sweat began to find its resting place my shirt, seeping in and cooling me down, my eyes adjusted to find nearby another fawn.
they stepped a cautious tango through the tangle and the slope
bending their necks and bowing to seek out sustinance, then heads rising to reveal their guarded eyes.

still focused only on their side of the hill, in their organic diorama, which in all respects the cosmos must have plopped me in front of it for an unknown reason
came the mother
she was so much closer, but she came to me last
her tan hide mocked the thick tree trunks
she was lower and could reach for food at her own eye level

this is when i started to really watch
i saw the mothers strong coat able to fit nicely into the shade
she could afford to go lower, but she still watched her children after each bite
and the spots of a fawn mirror the sunlight hitting the redwood needles through the filter of the tall canopy
they creep through the sunlit and jump through the dark

the deer weave in and out of my vision
and that is when i realized its near perfection
its simple skin had saved it
this is why it survived

as the deer moved after awhile, so did i
the clicking of my bike as i walked it was not an example of stealthness though
they hopped, or at least the fawns hopped, to the saftey above quickly
as a well worn instinct they scattered and slanted out of the sun
the mother found trees to move slowly behind before breaking out into a gallop
i was content

i feel that things were learned