Image by David Cohen/Unsplash, Public Domain Dedication (CC0).
The Swan
This laboring of ours with all that remains undone,
as if still bound to it,
is like the lumbering gait of the swan.
And then our dying—releasing ourselves
from the very ground on which we stood—
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself
into the water. It gently receives him,
and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him,
as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure,
allows himself to glide.
Translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows, reprinted with permission.
This poem was originally read in the On Being episode “A Wild Love for the World.”
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