Cut open to count the rings

[billy]

i do like your poetry kieth. some thoughts below. the last stanza changed the whole poem for me; in a good way mind. i get a sense real loss.

A child-minding crow
calls out through morning mist
as it clings cold
on banks of quiet bracken.
He follows footsteps for scraps
kept hidden from the murder. excellent line and good follow on for the first line.

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 not sure [as] does much. maybe a period then Red to start the next line.
red in pathway puddles. full of good imagery, i do get a feel of blood in this line.

Twirling loss under a bare canopy why twirling?
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?