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.
--Rainier Maria Rilke; translation by Stephen Mitchell
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