Dave Bonta gives us a small, sharp scene: a raven on a road, busy with something dead. The word "studious" is the surprise. Instead of treating the bird as grim or disgusting, the speaker watches it the way you might watch a scholar bent over a book. Decay becomes a kind of work, and the raven does it with care.
Then the poem turns. The second stanza steps back from the road and offers a line that sounds like wisdom: the secret to life is being "no use at all." It's playful, but it also has a bite. The raven, cleaning up what's left behind, is actually quite useful, so the line seems to carry some irony. Judging by the tone, the speaker may be half-joking, half-longing to escape the pressure to be productive. The mood is dry, calm and darkly amused, with death treated as ordinary rather than frightening.