The Gift Of The Empty Hand (edit #3)

[Achebe]

The Gift of Loss

You left without your things.

Eighty years of saving
sorted, labeled, ready for reuse.
Bookshelves crammed: 
Twain, Cayce, Eliot,
religious tomes in languages 
the rest of us couldn't read;
favorite issues from the weekly deluge
of magazines on every subject.
Closets stacked with picnic baskets
and fixable vacuum cleaners,
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes,
photos of you, us, them.

When the ocean took it all you came, grinning,
reminding me "They're just things."
My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.

The list of things left behind is detailed vividly. The ending is bittersweet and explains the title well in the last two lines.
On the other hand, the poem doesn't have a lot of heart-stopping lines. For me, 'when the ocean came' was where it truly became a poem; the rest of it being prosey. Particularly prosey ones being:
1. 'Bookshelves crammed' 
2. 'religious tomes' - that sounds plain ugly besides.
3. 'magazines on every subject' - sounds like marketing hyperbole
4. 'photos of you, us, in them'