Bashevkin! Bashevkin!
Oh where have you been?
Your page has been empty
To our chagrin
Bashevkin! Bashevkin!
Have you gone away?
Your poems we are missing
To our dismay
I know a man
Gets a break
Now and then
But millions rely
On the words of your pen
(Don’t want them replaced
By merely a ben)
Gone is the humor
Gone is the wit
It’s just not a Shabbos
When we’re without it
Yes, those were the letters
Yated did receive
When Bashevkin took
A lonely reprieve
And thinking in silence
Inches down low
He thought about losses
That some of us know
The best things in life
That we take for granted
Just can’t last forever
One day they’re supplanted
And then we all cry
And letters we write
Lamenting the daylight
That’s now turned to night
Indeed simple poets
And artists galore
Are here just a day
And then they’re no more
But those who endear us
And fill us with love
Who are larger than life
As they rise above
They, too, sadly pass
And leave us so bare
From teeming with life
And then they’re not here
Yes, poets may pass
Along with all those
Who paint pretty pictures
And write beautiful prose
But pictures and poems
Yes you can replace
And some other feature
Can take up this space
But those who instill
A spirit divine
Can never be swapped
By some poem of mine
So once in a while
The page that was blank
Reminds me that there
Are those who we thank
Whose place in the pages
Of the sefer hachayim
Is not now on parchment
But up in Shomayim
And all we can do
Is remember and thank
As we think and we thank
And cry as we stare at a page
That is blank
