Mission San Jose 1814 Valentine

How with these terrible
and common tasks
the empty future fills us
we who were neither rich
nor poor having nothing
and needing for nothing
we had all we wanted
which was very little
living without legends
of how or when we first
came to this country
but not without our own
rather ridiculous ideas
about the immortality
of man originally thinking
the sun must be angry
with us leaving us behind
until we saw his returning
again and again had little
to do with us nor was it
affected by our offerings
of seeds and penitential dances
which were soon neglected
then abandoned and forgotten
until the Christians came.