'Teach me simplicity'

I am dying of thirst by the stream...
- François Villon

Teach me simplicity —
to be happy for my home at home,
to love space in the fields
and the path by which I am led
through the lowlands to the mountain and down.

But whom will I ask? Everyone,
one could say, suffers the same.
What do I ask and about what,
if my neighbour is dying
from thirst by the stream?

(1975)