I am no longer the same 

Gone are the days when I had you near, 

when plans were like fine spiderwebs; 

fancies carried away by the wind in the waiting, 

paper dreams that time has already stripped away. 

I left behind everything that didn’t weigh on my soul, 

the paths that led nowhere; 

my heart, once a calm garden, 

is now a sea searching for its wide channel. 

I live to write what silence holds,

 to carry my words to distant lands; 

for my children, who are light in my wanderings, 

for my grandchildren, seeds of new days. 

I am no longer the same one who believed in castles, 

who expected miracles with every sunrise; 

now my life is a half-open book, 

where only what the heart has learned matters.

GRACIELA NOEMI VILLAVERDE is a writer and poet from Concepción del Uruguay (Entre Rios) Argentina, based in Buenos Aires She graduated in letters and is the author of seven books of poetry, awarded several times worldwide. She works as the World Manager of Educational and Social Projects of the Hispanic World Union of Writers and is the UHE World Honorary President of the same institution’s Activa de la Sade, Argentine Society of Writers. She is the Commissioner of Honor in the executive cabinet in the Educational and Social Relations Division of the UNACCC South America – Argentina Chapter.