EMPTY NEST...(continuity)

I've struggled with continuity and line breaks.  HELP!  And anything else you see...

EMPTY NEST

My dogwood tree cradles
A small empty bird's nest
That trembles gently in
Nervous bare branches
Like a child's stick drawing.

Winter wind has torn away
The leaves exposing the nest'
Young birds have fledged, flown.
The tree bark clings like an old man
With hands in pockets.

I wrap my winter bark around
Stooped shoulders, sip green
Tea, clutch my lap robe tighter
And wait to hear the chirping
Of my own scattered brood.

I hope for a call, card, note
Or best of all, a mini-van
Filled with laughter.

Dewell H. Byrd

EMPTY NEST

My dogwood tree cradles  (dogwood and tree are redundant)
A small empty bird's nest
That trembles gently in (seems like an omniscient narrator.  That could become simply observation)
Nervous bare branches (same thing with "nervous"
Like a child's stick drawing. (I would wait for the children to be brought into the poem since they are not present in "reality")

Winter wind has torn away
The leaves exposing the nest' (your "empty nest" was violent like winter wind?)
Young birds have fledged, flown.
The tree bark clings like an old man
With hands in pockets.

I wrap my winter bark around (I wonder if you benefit from a conjunction to increase a cause/effect relationship between the persona's vision and action, i.e. And I . . . .)
Stooped shoulders, sip green (why can't "tea" be on this line?)
Tea, clutch my lap robe tighter
And wait to hear the chirping
Of my own scattered brood. (I would enjamb this to the last stanza i.e. through . . .)

I hope for a call, card, note (through a call, car . . . )
Or best of all, a mini-van
Filled with laughter. (I would cut this line . . .)

Dewell, I'll look at it stanza by stanza.  I'll try to not repeat what Todd is saying:
S 1:  I am distracted by last line.  Do I need that?  I don't think so. 
S 2:  Do you want violence here?  A blast of winter wind. . . .   Or do you mean gusts of wind? 
Or wind with outspread wings. . . .?   I read torn away as violent.  Nest intact, but leaves blown.  Not just a normal letting go.   Was there a sound?  Did the wind roar or howl? 
I like the tree bark clinging like an old man with hands in pockets.
Last stanza:  What if you start with "hoping . . . . "  and drop the period after brood in the line before. 

We have two empty nests which makes it all the more interesting to me.  The first one is the birds and then the poet's nest where the parent waits to hear from the ones having left the nest.  Nice. You are giving me more to think about than the bird nest.  I like that.  Many of us know how it is to deal with waiting on children to connect after they've left the nest.  We certainly don't want to keep them in the nest!   But it's nice to hear from them from time to time.  : )

I like the picture of "nervous branches".  I also like the daily quality of the images.  It is so interesting to peek into the mind of a poet. 

I seem to seek Sturm and Drang, but what draws me in the work of others is the poet's view on the ordinary.

Dewell, I saw some of the things mentioned by the others like omiting "tree" after dogwood and "tea" needing to be put on the line with "sip green" but I was drawn in with the line "tree bark clings like and old man..."  It was the picture that transforms it from the bird nest to the "empty nest" that adults experience.  It was well done.  It could have ended with "my own scattered brood" and not been as sentimental, though.  I like the pictures and comparisions.