An Anecdote About Three Crows Poem by Denis Mair

It takes a lot of insight to understand a fellow creature. I'd like to share an anecdote about three crows, to show that they are capable of surprising me. Forgive this little piece of prose for taking up space in this house of poetry.
I was taking my regular 5.5 mile walk to my sister's house. In my hand I had a large dumpling made with glutinous rice flour, purchased at the Dahua Supermarket in Seattle. Because of the years I spent in Taiwan, I always get a festive feeling from eating globs of steamed mochi. I eat the unsweetened kind, pulling off little lumps and savoring the consistency.
I was absorbed in my eating and walking, maybe indulging in some kind of reverie. Suddenly I noticed that three crows were observing me from telephone wires. Crows A and B were on my side of that narrow street and crow C was on the other side. It was obvious that they were aware that I was eating something, and they wanted to embarrass me into giving it to them.
Then crow B suddenly flew diagonally over my head and perched on the wire ahead of crow C, not exactly dive-bombing me, but close enough to make me pay attention. They were all looking down at me. As I walked past crow C, it flew diagonally across the street, right over my head, and landed ahead of crow A. As I walked past crow A, it flew diagonally over me and landed ahead of crow B. When I walked past crow B, it flew diagonally over my head and landed on the wire ahead of crow C. When I walked past crow C, it flew diagonally over me and landed ahead of crow A. When I walked past crow A, it flew diagonally over me and landed ahead of crow B...and so on.
I felt a moment of sudden elation. The game was intentionally silly. Or were the crows somehow taking it seriously? They were connecting with me, asking for my morsel in an amusing way.
So I tossed the large glutinous rice dumpling onto a grass strip beside the street and watched as all three of them flew down to get it.
As I walked down the street, I still felt elated, but at the same time I felt like kicking myself. I should have torn the dumpling into three equal morsels, so they could share it without a hassle. I was thoughtless. Maybe it wasn't easy for them to pull it into three equal parts, but they are expert scavengers. I also regretted that I didn't stay to watch their reaction. I like to think that they were amused by the unexpected challenge of pulling that chewy dumpling into three pieces.