A small, ordinary scene: people are waiting in a hall, probably for a train or some other event, though the poem never says which. Around the man at the center, others chat about love affairs and shariat, a mix of gossip and weighty subjects. His wife quietly murmurs that they have arrived early, which sounds like a mild complaint about all this empty time.
He, meanwhile, isn't really listening to either of them. He scans the room for "poetically active faces," people who might share his own interest in poetry. The phrase is a little funny, as if poetry were something you could spot in someone's expression.
The mood is wry and gently ironic. The man seems slightly apart from the people around him, bored by the talk and by the waiting, and quietly hopeful of finding someone on his wavelength. The poem suggests how a writer's mind can stay restless and watchful, even in the dullest moments.