pretty nonplussed

you're passionate where love is concerned
and it seems concerned almost all the time

to be known in unsupervised state
a spirit of wild exhaustive vitality
so out of sorts with society yet a part of it

arriving sideways into rooms
unconcerned by seating arrangements 
never leaving rooms either as presence lingers
finding fault with customs
but tenderness in people

you snub the script
having learned every line by heart

you’re inexhaustible
inexhaustible in kindness
inexhaustible in passion
also inexhaustible in requirements
requirements only natural you’d ask

what is affection
without expectation
what is devotion
without a shape it hopes to take
and what is love
if it asks nothing of the beloved

concerned with friends and strangers
with forgotten animals
with the weathered corners of people's lives
concerned with whether they've eaten
whether they got home safely
whether they're saying what they mean
whether they know they're cherished

the world appears to you
less as an obligation
than as a series of living claims
each one asking for attention
each one receiving

you spend yourself freely
concerningly never seeming diminished
though perhaps miracle might replace concern

and still, out of sorts with society
you remain a part of it
arguing with its assumptions
mocking its vanities
refusing its cruelties
you cut around mould 
to save what's left to be saved
yet returning each morning
to the unfinished work
of loving what is there

to be known in unsupervised state
a spirit of wild exhaustive vitality
restless, demanding, affectionate
impossible to place
inexhaustible in kindness
inexhaustible in passion
also inexhaustible in requirements
because your love hasn't been hit by caution
to want little
your style is to love passionately
passionately and selflessly and completely
for the ever and ever that fiction allows

forever passionate where love is concerned
and, in truth, it's concerned all the time