A slight smile cut his wrinkled face.
Slowly he nudges several long grains
from his worn lacquer bowl onto the granite surface.

His longtime companion wing-flapped
and claw-hopped to perch next to him,
grey beak airborne after each eaten piece.

Six bald orange-robed figures strode
quietly to his side. Nodding to them, he rose
and stood by while they bowed, then lifted
the limestone cover of his mausoleum.

Every day a young acolyte places
a tiny bowl of rice on the aging stone.
Every day a crow eats the rice, and flips
the bowl over with a clatter when finished.

A decade passes. A small boy in orange
places the bowl, and sits to wait. The crow
arrives, almost blind now, with a stone
clutched in its gray beak.

Ignoring the bowl, the crow taps the limestone with its pebble.
The young boy nods when he hears the return tapping from below.