The Heart Has A Longing Of Its Own Apart From The Beautiful Poem by RIC BASTASA

who can dictate
what the heart can love?
no one

on that day of
sorrow
the beautiful princess
gives up
her royal right
to a shepherd
that she loved

travels a desert and
a forest
crosses six rivers
sleeps over grass
for three nights
just t to be with him

and she enters his
thatched-roof house
surrounded with chickens
and goats
and asks him to make
love with her tonight

she undresses herself
her white body
scented by fresh roses
and precious perfume
lighted
by the moon

but all that the shepherd did
was to look at the stars
and then
sleep

the night is cold
with its eerie silence
and the princess
kills herself