The Gift Of The Empty Hand (edit #3)

[ellajam]

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'

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment, Ron. Sadly, I'm starting to agree with you, not much poetry here, a bunch of run-on recollections, most of it can probably go.

There's something I like about religious tomes, they're so heavy and I don't mind using an ugly phrase for them, but I see your point.

I appreciate the way you defined your view so clearly, much appreciated.

I'm hopeless when it comes to critiquing you. There must be flaws, yes, ain't there in everything.
But your stuff blinds me to them. As I said, I'm hopeless, Ray

Thanks, Ray. Yanno, we shoot the arrow up and there are readers who it is most likely to hit. When it hits, the piece is taken as a whole and even what might rub the wrong way has its place that we accept.

The great value of these workshops is that we have such varied readers. The ones that don't just fall know exactly why and say so. For me they help me whittle a piece so that less people have much argument with it.

Take a look at the link in my last post, I think that one's better, though I'm going to give this one a try, it's NaPM, the roughest of drafts.