Counter Point

[tectak]

Forest stands with forest
in opposition, always.Overall, a very bland opener. It sounds more than it is. In fact, I am not really sure what it is
Winter-bearers or keepers-green:
whose stance will be the firmest,
prevailing through the killing days?Like WB's and KG's...but deciduous and evergreen?Do these need to be made cryptic...especially by cheap hyphenating? Killing days is bull's eye cliche. I should know. I've used it too often myself.
Answer not, you cowered stream,Why cowered? It is pretty obscure anyway but even stretching the meaning in all directions I cannot get it to describe a stream. Help
content to service both.The "both" is too far away from the objects referring. I have almost forgotten the trees. I do like "service" though. It has a kind of MOT feel to it. Mend Our Trees, maybe. (To me.Oh do stop it!)
What is it that you hope to gain? A very good question...and the answer is? Rhetorical questions like this, even when the next few lines DO describe adequately the inevitable demise of the stream, leave this reader a little cheated . This is because rhetorical questions actually DO need an answer, but the device is made to work when the reader has to work it out. To be fair, I cannot see what else you could do to get this little train of thought in play; though prohibiting an answer ( Answer not..) before asking the question, does make the rhetorical question tautologically redundant. Maybe just express the certainty of evaporation by counterpoint. i.e. "Answer not you cowered (?) stream, content to service both. For you are doomed by sun to die, where once your...."
You are doomed by sun to die,
where once your source brought growth.
That’ll be your fitting shame,
to die while pleading mercy of the sky.Here it comes. Look, do you want this to rhyme a)Sometimes? b) All the time? c) Never? d) Only on Tuesdays. Make your mind up because at the moment it is Saturday.

To pity moved, my heart is not,Inverse Yoda with a touch of middle-english Shakesperian aspiration. Quite dreadful...and totally unnecessary. You can clean this up yourself.
by ceasing flow and tumbled tree,
nor by screaming rabbit.I understand this! I understand this! but the NOR is not given the necessary negative options. Where is the NEITHER.?
For all things do go down to rot,
and thereby finally are set free.
Or so I think as here I sit,No...please...not "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits"
awaiting doom now closely brought.
Though rivalled not amidst the trees,
my power finds its counter now;
for this potent cat is finally caught,
by the grasping hands of Time.The last stanza is over-wordy and packed with idiosyncratic turns of phrase. ...all things do go down...thereby finally are....doom now closely brought...though rivalled not...to end in the cat-clawed cliche, hands of time. You need to decide what century you are in...and stay in it for the duration of your poem.

There is no "overall" comment from me. In spite of the crit, the concept is good, if a little over-dramatised for what is in essence, a very small thought. Don't get me wrong, that is often (if not always) the beauty of poetry...expansionism. The ability to make something out of very little...a universal dogma!
A few edits to go but this will stand up.
Best,
tectak