Cut open to count the rings

[Tiger the Lion]

Hey Keith. Interesting images. There are places where the layering of ideas requires spot on grammar and punctuation to remain clear. 

A child-minding crow
calls out through morning mist
as it clings cold "it" could be either the crow or the mist by my read. Should be "he" for the crow or "that" for the mist.
on banks of quiet bracken.
He follows footsteps for scraps
kept hidden from the murder.

Gnarled oaks watch saplings take shape,
bent by the wind's advice,
arthritic branches knuckle
with fingers of new growth
as mud caked wellingtons rinse mud-caked Wellingtons - I think
red in pathway puddles.

Twirling loss under a bare canopy I read these next four lines a few different ways depending how I punctuate. None of them are quite correct. There's a surreal satisfaction, but not a logical one for me to sit with. 
questions push speech on falling leaves
and listens to the moss covered bark
of a broken soldiers stride.
Why do these old trees survive
when all their pretty has gone and died?

Hope some of that helps.
Paul