At first look, Joyas Voladores, does not look like a poem. Instead it looks like a short essay. The poem is broken up into six parts, each one focusing on a different view of the heart. First impression is very scientific. The speaker describes hummingbirds as “flying jewels”.  There is a brief background saying how there are many different species and they only exist in the western hemisphere. The scientific feel of the poem continues on until almost the last part. In the last part the speaker delves into a more figurative and romantic tone while describing how closed our hearts are. Combining the scientific and the romantic feel of the poem and it seems almost like a TED talk, where experts come together to discuss some new research, but connect it to a more human emotion. The poem utilizes many literary devices such as imagery and juxtaposition to give the tone.

There are many different images conjured in the reader’s mind throughout the poem. The easiest picture would be of the hummingbird. Using words like “flying jewel”, the vibrant colors of hummingbirds spring immediately to the mind. Likewise, describing them as “whirring and zooming and nectaring” shows the speed and energy that hummingbirds so easily possess. This part of the poem gives the feeling of the vibrancy of the hummingbird and how special a species they are, it makes us care about the hummingbird like a preservationist would make us care. 

In the next part of the poem, still focused on the hummingbird, the feeling turns to a dark and bleak underbelly to the hummingbirds’ existence. The speaker switches to the topic of death. When the hummingbird is not flittering about its heart rate, “sludging nearly to a halt”, drops so low that it will almost certainly die if it does not warm itself up. The speaker rattles off a list of many different types of hummingbirds like the amethyst woodstars , crimson topazes, and glittering-bellied emeralds. Then he asks the reader to imagine them not waking up the next day. This sad thought conjures up the image of a dark life. Without all the jewel colored birds flying about the world would be worse off than before. 

The focus shifts back to the insane hearts of the hummingbird. The speaker describes the “race-car” hearts used to drive their metabolisms. This part of the poem has a quicker pace and feels more frantic. The speaker talks about all the heart attacks and aneurysms hummingbirds are more likely to face. “The price of their ambition is a life closer to death”, this sentence makes the hummingbirds purpose feel more like a daredevil’s need for an adrenaline rush rather than just the way the hummingbirds survive. “It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine” describes the hummingbirds, and all birds really, as mechanical, not anatomical. 

The speaker then juxtaposes a hummingbird and a whale. There is a switch from one of the smallest hearts, “the size of an infant’s fingernail”, to the largest heart, “as big as a room”. The poem also switches back to the more scientific feel, describing the life cycle of a whale and how much it eats and how much it grows in its lifetime. Whales live quite a bit longer than hummingbirds. Hummingbirds live to about two years and whales can live up to ninety years. Imagining a hummingbird next to a blue whale is almost humorous. It’s easy to imagine the small bird fluttering all around the ginormous whale. 

“Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers” brings the whale and hummingbird back to something they have in common and what whales and hummingbirds have in common with humans. This part of the poem describes all the hearts of all the organism on the planet in very broad terms, just the size. This short part feels like it holds the ultimate meaning of the poem, “we all churn inside”. It does not matter who we are or what we are, there is something inside us that constantly moves to keep us all alive. 

There is a final shift in the poem in the last part. This part focuses more on the human like aspects of hearts, the figurative part. Imagining that we are truly alone in the world is scary. The speaker pulls on this fear by saying that it is necessary to be alone. “We are utterly open with no one in the end” is a terrifying thought. The speaker explains that we could not stand to be so bare in front of each other. Then he goes on to say that when we were young we had a trusting sense that is laughable as we get older. By the time we are adults, we have gone through heartbreak and sadness that causes us to brick up our hearts against the world. There is hope, however, for the wall to be torn down. Simple things in life like “a child’s apple breath” or “the memory of your father’s voice” can break down a wall. 

The overall feel of Joyas Voladores is inspirational. What starts out as a scientific explanation on hummingbirds turns into a meaningful lesson on human hearts. The contrast between humans and more animalistic species such as worms and insects comes together when we all have a churning inside of us. The images conjured through the intense language used leave lasting impressions on the beauty of life. The six parts of this prose poem appear separate at first glance, but make sense when they are put together. 