Brian Doyle’s “Joyas Volardores” is a rather deep poem. Doyle talks about the hearts of different creatures throughout his prose poem. He goes from talking about the heart of a hummingbird, to the heart of a blue whale, then to the heart of a human. He tends to randomly jump from one to the other without explanation, but he ties everything together toward the end of the poem. “Joyas Volardores” illustrates how the heart serves many purposes. It is an engine, it allows things to love, wants things to love, makes people want to live and connects all beings in an unimaginable way.

Within the third paragraph of the poem, Doyle attempts to get the reader to think about life. He does this by giving the reader the example of a hummingbird. He immediately points out how rapidly a hummingbird’s heart beats and how small it is. Doyle also points out that the hummingbird does not live too long, about 2 years, because of the strain it puts on its heart. The narrator says, “The price of their ambition is a life closer to death” (Doyle 95). This means that the more activity that the birds do, the more strain they put on their hearts, which results in them dying sooner rather than later. By trying to live a more adventurous life, the hummingbird is essentially killing itself. The text is pushing the reader to decide which would be better; to live a long and uneventful life, or a short and enjoyable one. One of the main things about life is that it should be enjoyed, and the text makes a short and adventurous life seem a lot more appealing than a long and dull one.

The narrator also talks about the hearts of humans. He mentions that the heart is a lonely place. The narrator says, “We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart” (Doyle 96). Doyle is trying to say that people want to let others into their lives and into their hearts, but it is a very hard thing to do. In the end, no one knows what goes on in one’s heart. No one can understand exactly how somebody feels and that person is essentially by himself or herself in his or her heart. 

Doyle says that some people realize the fact that no one can enter their heart and completely understand them. They know this so they do not even bother to try to let people in. The narrator says that this does not usually last long. He says, “You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s glance…” (Doyle 96). Doyle is pointing out that people want others to understand them. People may try to block others out of their lives, but that goes against the nature of the heart. The heart is what makes people want to establish emotional connections with others. 

Back to the hummingbird, Doyle refers to the heart as an engine. In reference to the hummingbird’s heart he specifically says, “You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine” (Doyle 94). He uses the term engine in both a literal and metaphorical sense. The heart is what keeps a person alive. If the engine dies, then the person dies. The engine is also what keeps people going. It pushes us forward; it is the reason people keep moving on. I think the narrator refers to the heart as an engine also because it is what drives people. Everything that people do, they do it because they want to satisfy their hearts. People’s hearts are the reasons they do good things for one another. For example, not only does helping another person make that person’s day a little bit better, it makes the person who helped the other feel good about him or herself. Fulfilling the heart’s desires makes people feel alive and gives their lives purpose. 

Humans, along with other animals, want to make these emotional connections, whether they admit or not. The heart is something that people associate with love. The heart is the thing that makes a person want to establish these emotional connections. The heart is very powerful and it is hard to say no to. That is why many people go with their hearts rather than their brains on tough decisions. That is why someone may not report an abusive partner, because he or she loves that person so much and thinks that person can change. This may not be the smart decision, but it may be what the heart wants. The love that he or she has for that person may be too hard to throw away. It is also why so many people enjoy watching romance movies. Most people probably know that a fair amount of those movies are just rehashed with some details changed, but they love these movies anyway. These movies almost always have a happy ending and makes the people watching it feel good. It makes people desire a romantic connection like they see in the movies. I believe that in a way everyone seeks to experience one of the little moments that are seen in movies and that the narrator talks about such as, “…a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road…” (Doyle 96). I think these moments not only allow people to experience love, but it makes them feel alive. 

This brings me to the part of the poem about the blue whale. One thing Doyle points out is that researchers know next to nothing about the blue whale. All that is really known is that it is one of the largest creatures in the world and that it has the largest heart in the world. The narrator says, “But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs…” (Doyle 95-96). This means that despite the large amount of things that researchers do not know about the blue whales, they know that they each find a partner. As I was saying earlier, the heart wants to establish connections. This does not only apply to humans, as animals such as the blue whale search for partners. Other animals seek the same companionship that humans seek. 

Doyle’s decision to talk about the hummingbird and the blue whale was not random. He chose an animal with a small heart and an animal with an enormous heart for a reason. He is trying to show that the size of the heart does not matter. All hearts have the same functions. They keep all beings that have hearts alive. They make living things want to form connections and find partners. It does not matter if a heart beats extremely fast or very slow; every heart has the same purpose. The narrator was trying to show two things that one would initially think are very different, but end up being similar in ways that someone would not think of. 

The heart serves many purposes. It connects all humans in an unbelievable way. Love is an incredible thing and it is amazing that most living things on the planet can feel and experience it. The narrator teaches the reader an important lesson about the heart. He shows that the heart is way more than just an organ. The heart is an important factor in people’s decision making and emotional standpoint. It is also crazy to think that the littlest thing can affect the way someone’s heart feels as well. Hearing a certain set of words can completely make one go from feeling completely happy to being overcome with sadness and vice versa. The heart is an extremely important and powerful part of all living creatures, both for its physical and mental benefits.
