Two short scenes make up this poem, and in both a homeless man turns up in a place that wouldn't expect him. First he is a beggar in a library, and the poet describes the manuscripts there as "dry old manuscripts of hands." That odd phrase makes the pages feel like hands themselves, brittle and worn, so the beggar's own hands seem to belong with them. Both are things the world has stopped looking at.
In the second scene, the speaker and others find him in "the church of no chance," telling stories to the spirits. The name suggests a place where hope has run out, yet the man isn't silent or defeated. He still has stories, and he has an audience, even if it's an unseen one.
The speaker doesn't lecture or pity. The tone is quiet and observant, a little tender. The mood is hushed and slightly eerie, but it also gives the beggar a strange dignity: he's poor, yet he keeps memory and storytelling alive.