People with Green Hearts

Arabic poem,
Author شهرزاد الخليج,
Translated and illustrated by Nahida Exiled Palestinian

People with green hearts 

The colour of trees is the colour of their hearts 

Their dreams… water pure

 Their imagination… sky wide

 They are capable of infinite forgiveness 

Have the ability to bathe in optimism

 And to wash themselves in dreams to the very last drop

 People with green hearts

 Don’t ever expect to be stabbed from the back 

By a hand that once shook theirs

 Their days and seasons are works of art painted with hope

 They don’t learn easily from their mistakes

 Instead, they keep repeating them like a child’s bad habits

 

 They offer hearts around them infinite trust 

They're incapable of seeing the colour black in existence

 People with green hearts 

Come intimately near to those who pass them by in life, 

So much so that they are glued to them 

They cling to the minute details 

Ever trusting of those around

 Creative in finding excuses to the faults of others 

 People with green hearts 

Cling onto beginnings like mad 

Reject endings fiercely 

They can’t comprehend separation

They trick reality with a dream 

The dream with an illusion 

On the map of hope, they occupy vast areas

People with green hearts

 Don’t recognise mistrust or deception 

Nor do they cause others to taste portrayal 

They start with purity

 And end up with faithfulness

 Longing steals much of their time

 They keep loyal to their tales until death 

Yesterday has immense reverence in their lives

 People with green hearts

 Play the role of peace doves

 Spreading love on earth 

Help in building abodes of joy 

They hasten to mend the broken hearts

 And talk with the voice of affection

About love and dreams

They make you feel that it’s them 

Who invented the colour “white” in this universe

 People with green hearts 

Hold fast to childhood, despite the passing of years 

Their hearts forever young 

Their souls never grow old, nor become polluted 

Their faces reflects babyhood innocence 

Their eyes mirror truthfully their essence

They’re not good at hiding, or deceiving 

And fail miserably in wearing masks

 People with green hearts

 Never fail you when you need them

 They are the first to cover your needs

 When feeling overwhelmed;

They are the first thing that you lay your eyes upon 

The first who come to your rescue when drowned in sorrow 

When you are suffocated they’d give you their breath 

They’d make their lives a life ring thrown to you

 People with green hearts

 When they love, they love passionately 

When they are faithful, they are faithful passionately

 When they get a shock, the get a shock passionately

 And when they are broken, they are broken passionately

 When they give, they give passionately 

And when they cry, they cry passionately

 If you find yourself embraced

 By one of those with green hearts 

Cling onto them… passionately

 As they are a rare treasure

 In times of colour-shifting hearts