SEARCHING

Sometimes when I see someone looking
Restlessly about them, seeming
As distracted as I have often felt,
Unable, I suppose, to find that person
Whom in heart and mind they long for,
I seem to rise above the world, out of
My state of continual perplexity, and feel
Disdain for this distracted earth: what need
I think, have I for this world driven
By the many forms of fear and hunger,
What need of this graceless place,
Not ugly nor evil, but simply the smile
Of an unsouled face? None, no none at all.
But then aware that using those words
Contempt is all I feel, the need for grace
Returns; and having no world but this
I sink, struggle, trying to rise again
To look at last upon a different face.