Gramatically, as presented in my Petit Robert, the adjectival "vide de" means "qui ne contient pas." In this poetic use of the adjective, there is a twist clarified by John Holland's identification of the poem. If something is EMPTY of ABSENCE, it is logically FULL ... which is quite the opposite of "meaningless," as Laurence Fogarty suggests. My proposed translation is a bit less abstract than a literal "emptied of their absence" would be, though I think it might work well as it plays against the use of "significance" in the thought captured by these lines.

that is/seems hollow without them

I'd translate in this way as an ameteur poet!

It sounds like this sentence is expressing the following idea -
The 'centre' is the goal, in that is is the end of the search for meaning, and the search for meaning arises from the emptiness, or absence, inside oneself. When the goal is achieved, and meaning is found, this 'absence' disappears, just as when one looks for something and finds it, one stops looking for it since its 'absence' has disappeared.

It seems to me that there is paradox in the poem. The center is both empty and full, simultaneously. The center is also an absence, yet filled with traces of the past.

The literal meaning of the last part of the commentary on the poem, "vide de leur absence," would be something like "emptied of or by their absence" or "devoid of their absence." I take "their" to refer to women, i.e., to those engaged in this search for meaning, and I take the phrase "vide de leur absence" as an adjective modifying "center."

Here is an attempt at a translation that tries to include a paradoxical element:
"The whole essence of their quest gravitates around the search for meaning, which is a search for signification and also for a path that will lead them to the center [that is] emptied by their absence."

That translation seems to imply that their eventual presence will fill the center (even if it is a fullness that also is an absence), which seems to correspond to the overall reading of the poem in the commentary,

As an alternative, that adds a bit of interpretation, maybe "...the empty center, filled with their absence" would be possible. I think that could correspond a bit more to the meaning of the stanza of the poem, but I'm not so sure it accurately represents the commentary (which I have only read through superficially).


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Note added at 4 hrs (2013-02-27 12:57:38 GMT)
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@ormiston

I definitely agree that "sens" also implies "direction." I was hoping to express that element in the second part of the sentence's elaboration on "sens" ("path that will lead them to").

I also wanted to preserve the possible allusion to "sens" vs. "signification" ("meaning" vs "signification") that is important in some kinds of literary criticism, such as psychoanalytic criticism. I don't think it's a complete stretch to hear that kind of theoretical evocation given that the next paragraph in the commentary talks about alienation and trauma, which also figure in that approach:
"L'expérience de l'aliénation est douloureuse et traumatisante." (at http://aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au/Bassole5.html ).

I do like your suggestion to add "left or rendered."