The Swan

This laboring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.
And dying—to let go,
no longer feel the solid ground we stand on every day–
is like his anxious letting himself fall
Into the water, which receives him gently
and which, as though with reverence and joy,
draws back past him in streams on either side;
while infinitely silent and aware,
in his full majesty and ever more indifferent,
he condescends to glide.
-Rainer Maria Rilke