What are the qualities of the heart in "The Lives of the Heart"?

In the first five lines the speaker announces eleven
different qualities of the lives of the heart. The title of the poem itself is the
grammatical subject of the five verbs in these five lines. Indeed, the title serves as
the subject of the major verbs in the first 28 lines. Each of the qualities and
attributes is, to say the least, both unusual and challenging when considered with what
is usually said about the heart. It would be difficult to imagine, for example, that
these qualities might appear in a popular song. Thus the very opening words are
startling, for who has ever imagined the lives of the heart to be ligneous? But when the
word is analyzed, the idea emerges that the heart is a seat of passion and also of
anger. In lines 2 and 3 one might note that the heart—the affections, the whims, the
inclinations—leads people into unusual or perhaps even strange paths. So is it also with
the Fibonnaci spheres, which suggest that the heart may lead individuals into intricate
pathways of science and inquiry. These opening five lines are as lively as the many
lives of the heart that Hirshfield is describing.