I wrote this poem quite a few years ago, whilst I was at University in Aberystwyth. Looking back, the poem is a little cringy in places, but I've kept it in an old notebook for the last couple of decades, so it must have meant something.
The title "Dead crow jumping" comes from one of the books by Craig Shaw Gardener that I was reading at the time. Book one of the Dragon Circle books, called Raven Walking.
I walked past a crow earlier today.
It was walking around in its crow-like way.
Jumping up and down on the same spot.
As it if the ground were very hot.
I knew what it was trying to do.
But it was not breaking the morning dew.
No worms were going to come to it.
Unless they were extremely fit.
For it jumped up and down on a man made stone.
Working it's feed away to the bone.
I thought it was odd that it should be there.
But it just gave me a funny stare.
So I walked on by without a second glance.
While it continued its weird little dance.
When I returned a bit later on.
The bird was there; but its spirit was gone.
Lying quite still in the middle of the road.
Its red and black mass, slowly turning cold.
Blood lay on the black concrete.
And trailed off down the street.
Wing by its side, head bent back.
Its bones all broken, each with a crack.
Its life had been taken by a mechanical horse.
That showed little, or no, killing remorse.
The story is that I was walking from University halls to the local shop, which goes along a road along the back of the accommodations. This was the only access road to the multiple little car parks in the campus. A crow was doing a little dance on the tarmac of the road, and I knew it was attempting to get worms out of the ground, but wasn't going to. I'd seen seagulls doing the same thing on the grass recently, and had even seen the seagulls teaching each other how to do it.
On the way back from the shop, I saw that the crow had been run over by a car. The vibrancy of a crow dancing on the tarmac was replaced by a still black and red mess. It really disturbed me at the time; to the point that I wrote this cringeworthy poem.