The Constellations are a harmoniously composed series of 23 gouaches that Miró painted to escape the trauma of the war years.
— The Joan Miró Foundation
We’ve all gouached.
Haven’t we? Pollock lashed
stretched canvas that was Nude.
Was said to call his Ruth prude
and he spat chew in a coffee can
and shat bloodily in the can.
When I was twenty I spent three
hours in a room with the Free-
Spirited Types moving from
one inviting orifice to the welcome
of another. I was lost in my wood,
savage and stern. But also I understood
that when it was later and I was wiser
I could never forgive Herr Pfizer.
My father said we’ve all got an East River.
He had a tenuous web of veins for a liver.
His loss. Literally. Mom’s impatient art
was proved to be the most effective part
of her mothering: you should see her rich greens
well up in the power of the middle and grow lean
as they colonize the crusted edges.
My love for her is impregnable.
Pity Miró, moonblind, weary on the rocky coast
of Portugal, walking cliff paths and getting lost.
His quest for childish wonder has bent him
and riddled his skin before its time.
Put this together with that! Paint it yellow!
Murk the sky with banks of Periwinkle and Snow.
Gouache a widened eye low on the right,
so it can behold the left and the night.
- Noah Warren