Joyas Voladoras

In his essay Joyas Voladoras, Brian Doyle explores the paradox of the heart, and its ability to both bring forth mesmerizing joy as well as deep rooted pain. Narrowing his focus down to two very dissimilar mammals, the hummingbird and the blue whale, Doyle compares them by contrasting each creature’s heart. Then he continues on to relate the different creatures’ hearts to that of a human’s. Through his comparison, Doyle opens our eyes to a new, and more interesting perspective on life, and how we handle our hearts. Throughout his entire prose, it was Doyle’s closing sentence that struck me the most on the sheer vulnerability of the human heart:
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 second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children. (148 - 149)
The heart is our driving force, a symbol that stands for life, love and emotions, but that it can also be our weak spot, our downfall, what fails us – because, ultimately, the heart is vulnerable.
First, Doyle elaborates on the heart of the hummingbird.

Although miniature, the hummingbird’s heart enables it to live its life at an incredibly fierce and speedy pace. He tells us that its heart “beats ten times a second” although it’s only “the size of a pencil eraser”, and that “each one visits a thousand flowers a day”, “can dive sixty miles an hour”, “can fly backwards”, and “can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest”(Doyle 147). He leaves us in awe, after presenting us with a series of eye-opening facts about just how impressive and remarkable the hummingbird’s heart is. Despite this, Doyle goes on to say, “but when they rest they come close to death…their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed…their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be” (147). It’s a life too fast-paced from them to handle – they just can’t keep up. When the hummingbird tries to rest, to stay alive, its heart causes it pain and brings it to near death. Hummingbirds “suffer heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures more than any other living creature” (Doyle 147). Oddly, because its heart will not allow it to properly rest, the hummingbird eventually succumbs to a short life span of “two years”, or until it “burns out” (Doyle 147-148). It is what the heart needs that ends up killing it. No matter how extraordinary the tiny hummingbird is, even it has heart that is

vulnerable.
Secondly, Doyle elaborates on the heart of the blue whale – a creature worlds apart from the hummingbird. Doyle deliberately transitions between one of the smallest mammalian hearts to the largest, describing the blue whale’s heart as massive enough to be a house that a kid could run about in from room to room (148). Like with the hummingbird, Doyle presents us with amazing facts about the blue whale, saying that its heart alone “weighs more than seven tons”, “is a room, with four chambers”, and “drives a creature a hundred feet long” that “drinks a hundred gallons of milk…every day and gains two hundred pounds a day” (148). One of the very few things known about blue whales, he states, is that they “generally travel in pairs” which suggests that love may be an essential aspect of their lives (Doyle 148). Once again, like with the hummingbirds, Doyle changes the atmosphere suddenly by then indicating that although blue whales have the biggest hearts and seem to seek closeness and companionship, their aching, sorrowful cries carry on through the water for unimaginable miles (148). This gives us the image that despite being able to love their whale partners immensely with their enormous hearts, blue whales experience constant distress and agony at the same time. No matter how extraordinary the blue whale is, even it has a heart that is vulnerable.
Finally, Doyle elaborates on the heart of a human. He makes the transition from animals to humans by stating that despite all living things being of different species, still “we all churn inside” (Doyle 148). He immediately dives into the vulnerability of our hearts, and describes just how exposed, defenseless, lonely and afraid we really are. “We are utterly open with no one, in the end”, he says, and that “we open windows to each other but we live alone in the house of the heart”, “we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart” (Doyle 148). Once again, it’s Doyle’s closing line that truly portrays the raw vulnerability of our hearts:
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 second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children. (148 - 149)
These words depict very specific, very vivid, very powerful images that stir raw emotions within each of us, individually, and enables us (each) to personalize it with our own memories and experiences.

Different thoughts, yes - but we all still comprehend the essential core of his words: our hearts are vulnerable. Humans have a tendency to build up metaphorical walls around our hearts in a desperate attempt to shield ourselves and to hide, but eventually we succumb to our emotions and the walls crumble, leaving our hearts more exposed and more defenseless than ever before (Doyle 148). It’s our heart makes us human and enables us to feel freely and easily – this can be a great thing when those feelings are good, but when they are terrible, we immediately work hard to protect it from further being “bruised and scarred, scorned and torn” (Doyle 148). We too, can’t help but have hearts that are

vulnerable.
In conclusion, like the hummingbird and the blue whale, and all living things, our hearts are our strength and our weakness. Through his carefully worded prose, Doyle was not only able to fascinate us with facts about the abilities of the smallest and largest hearts but also conjure up emotions within us when he speaks to us directly about our hearts’ vulnerability. Doyle leaves us with a warning, even if “you brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can” to guard yourself, it will always come tumbling down “in an instant” (148).