Falling in Love 

You arrive like the rain that doesn’t announce itself, 

that doesn’t ask permission to touch the earth, 

and transforms the dust into something that shines, 

making the ordinary sacred. 

You are the map that isn’t written, 

the course not drawn with lines, 

a heartbeat that deviates from its routine 

to find its home in another rhythm. 

Your gaze is a mirror that doesn’t reflect what you see, 

but what you are: a place where I recognize myself, 

where my scattered fragments find their form, 

where loneliness ceases to be a habit. 

It’s as if time sheds its hours, 

as if space shrinks to fit in the palm of a hand, 

everything that existed before becomes a distant shadow, 

and what is to come is only the moment we are in. 

It’s not a choice, 

nor a pre-arranged plan, 

it’s the flower that blooms unbidden, 

that opens its petals to the light without question,

knowing that its reason for being is to live.

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.