The Gift Of The Empty Hand (edit #3)

[REW]

The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #2)

You left without your things.

Eighty years of salvage shelved
beside Cayce, Twain and Eliot;
issues from the weekly deluge
of Archeology, New Yorker, Science
and annotated testaments
the rest of us would never read.
Closets harbor picnic baskets
and rescued vacuum cleaners;
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes;
photos of your youth, and ours.

When the ocean took it all
your grin appeared and whispered:
They're just things.

My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.

OR...

The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #2.1)(Jacob)

You left without your things.

Eighty years of salvage shelved beside Cayce, Twain and Eliot; issues from the weekly deluge of Archeology, New Yorker, Science and annotated testaments the rest of us would never read. Closets harbor picnic baskets and rescued vacuum cleaners; Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes; photos of your youth, and ours.

When the ocean took it all
your grin appeared and whispered:
They're just things.

My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.

---

The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #1)

You left without your things.

Eighty years of salvaged scraps sorted
and shelved alongside Twain, Cayce, Eliot;
illegible religious tomes and old issues
of Archeology, New Yorker and Science
each with one article you couldn't trash.
Closets stacked with antique picnic baskets
and almost working vacuum cleaners,
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes,
stacks of photos you caught and that caught you.

When the ocean took it all you came,
I heard your grinning voice:
"It's just stuff."
My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.


The Gift of Loss (original)

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.

Hello ellajam,

What I like about this is that it is a uniquely positive take on loss.  What I find a bit confusing is the reference to the person in the poem who left without his things.  From what I gather a storm event involving the ocean took the contents of the closet.  Was the man taken during this event or afterward?  Or was it during and his spirit came to comfort you over the loss of things?  What about the loss of him?  I really like how you listed contents of the closet and created the take that now the narrator's arms are empty for holding...but I am a little confused by the man being gone.  Perhaps these questions could be answered in the poem?  I can see by the revisions that it has been evolving.

---

The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #2)

You left without your things.

Eighty years of salvage shelved
beside Cayce, Twain and Eliot;
issues from the weekly deluge
of Archeology, New Yorker, Science
and annotated testaments
the rest of us would never read.
Closets harbor picnic baskets
and rescued vacuum cleaners;
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes;
photos of your youth, and ours.

When the ocean took it all
your grin appeared and whispered:
They're just things.

My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.

OR...

The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #2.1)(Jacob)

You left without your things.

Eighty years of salvage shelved beside Cayce, Twain and Eliot; issues from the weekly deluge of Archeology, New Yorker, Science and annotated testaments the rest of us would never read. Closets harbor picnic baskets and rescued vacuum cleaners; Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes; photos of your youth, and ours.

When the ocean took it all
your grin appeared and whispered:
They're just things.

My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.

---

The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #1)

You left without your things.

Eighty years of salvaged scraps sorted
and shelved alongside Twain, Cayce, Eliot;
illegible religious tomes and old issues
of Archeology, New Yorker and Science
each with one article you couldn't trash.
Closets stacked with antique picnic baskets
and almost working vacuum cleaners,
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes,
stacks of photos you caught and that caught you.

When the ocean took it all you came,
I heard your grinning voice:
"It's just stuff."
My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.


The Gift of Loss (original)

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.

I think it took me a bit to process...indeed the narrator's arms are full of empty...empty of things and the man in the poem.  I had a delayed reaction.  And I suppose it doesn't matter when the man was last (during or after the storm).  Sorry I was a bit slow.