A New Year’s Message

Written by SS Guru Dain Singh Khalsa of Espanola, New Mexico and shared on page 114 of the book, The Man Called the Siri Singh Sahib, which was published in 1979.

The New Year draws near us, as the one before ends.
Outside a blizzard, inside with friends
Singing songs of the Guru in a candlelit hall,
Safe from the cold of the endless snow fall.
By a cedarwood fire, I write you a song.
In the ten years I’ve known you, I’ve taken too long
To tell you I love you. I want you to know.
Of the things deep inside that aren’t easy to show.
The day will come someday, we both will be dead,
But some will remember these things that we said.

An old Persian poet once wrote a few lines,
Described love as a flower that dies on the vine.
But I see now that the vine is the love,
With the warm earth below it and the blue sky above,
And the earth is of knowledge and beauty the sky,
And wisdom the seer that sees through the eye
That vines they will wither and flowers fade away,
But new ones will replace them on a warm springtime day,
And love springs eternal on the breath of the earth
And the wise ones pursue it for all that they’re worth.

For years I was searching and hoping to find
A life that was just like I’d seen in my mind.
With a land that was healing and answered my touch
And a teacher of teachers who knew just how much,
I wanted a change from the cycle of years,
And a path that led out of the valley of tears.
With a family of people that wasn’t afraid
To live in the light of commitments they’d made,
In a dignified grace that was born without fear.
With all of these hopes, I found my way here.

For five hundred miles I drove through the storm,
While other men stayed in their homes and kept warm.
I knew you’d be here when I’d finally arrive,
On the strength of that prayer you kept me alive.
The cold wind was blowing as I drove through the snow,
But I knew without you there’d be no place to go.
All these are the words that I wanted to say,
As I walked to your house at the end of the day.
If you in your knowledge and strength are the land,
Then I am the vine that grew from your hand.

The fire burns brightly as I tell you these things,
While one friend shows pictures and another one sings.
And out of the fire the sparks fly so high,
And bright and then fall to the grate where they die.
And each one of us will one day depart,
Gone but for the memories that live in the heart.
As the memory of us fades back into the past
Like last summer’s flowers that you knew wouldn’t last,
Remember the love in our hearts will live on
In the hearts of all those who come after we’re gone.