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 anxiously letting himself fall

into waters, which receive him gently
and which, as though with reverence and joy,
draw back past him in streams on either side;
whil, infinitely silent and aware,
in his full majesty and ever more
indifferent, he condescends to glide.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~