I decided to have a look at the 1966 Spring Edition of Quarto and stumbled upon a lovely short poem -The Blue Beret, by David Lukashok, which left me with a sense of loveliness. The strength of his use of color throughout the poem was impressive, and interesting that he chose to use two colors that were at opposite ends of the spectrum. The first time I read it I was left with an ineffable sense of beauty and simplicity, pure and basic, and intensely visual. I decided to try my hand at it and wrote a pastiche of it, but changed the age and sex of the subject in addition to changing the colors Lukashok used. Maybe the different colors might invoke a different feeling to the poem as a whole, I don’t know, but I hope you’ll let me know how differently you felt after reading Lukashok’s original**and after reading my imitation of it. Enjoy.
The Green Sweater
(An interpretation/imitation of David Lukashok’s “The Blue Beret”, by Amital Isaac)
Like a young fellow, a student
My budding beau in green,
Green woven wool
With a sea of waves across his chest
On a knit of soft olive green
And his eyes like clouds of gray hanging above
Piercing and calm as he looked over his shoulder
And then the other way
But both of them O so gray
Where did I see him?
When waves began crashing in my ears
And silver gray specks turned away
All I was left with
All but
His green gray eyes
** Lukashok’s original piece here on Page 48:
http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/quarto/quarto-1966-spring-issue/
