The Gift Of The Empty Hand (edit #3)

[QDeathstar]

mmy reaction was a bit different...

The Gift of Loss

You left without your things. powerful start, I was ready to be emoted here...

Eighty years of saving
sorted, labeled, ready for reuse.
Bookshelves crammed:
Twain, Cayce, Eliot, i honestly feel like these are just name drops, I mean, what do they really add to the poem
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. so, basically a whole stanza on how she collects a lot of books, old vacuums, and some pictures destined to fade away (Polaroid film isn't stable). I am let down, I mean, the title and first line gave me a lot of emotion and this is just... bleh. I dont even think the fact that she lost it all below redeems the amount of time spent in this stanza.

When the ocean took it all you came, grinning,
reminding me "They're just things."
My arms are full of empty, im not sure about the word full, it's a small detail, but, full has perhaps a more positive connotation... I'm trying to imagine a better phrase but I just can't work it out... Also, reading this one stanza, I wanted to connect the first two lines in this stanza with the last two lines, and I can't... maybe you need a "now" before my arms, or isolate the last two lines somehow.
free to hold today.

some thoughts, thanks for the read.

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edit:
I do like how your loss ties into her loss and how her ability to accept it allowed you to accept it, I think that is what makes this a poem worth reading. every suggestion I can think of for the second to last line muddies that connection too much...