The Lumbering Gait of the Swan

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a letter to Countess Margot Sizzo-Noris-Crouty in 1924:

The great secret of death, and perhaps its deepest connection with us, is this: that, in taking from us a being we have loved and venerated, death does not wound us without, at the same time, lifting us toward a more perfect understanding of this being and of ourselves.

The Swan by Rainer Maria Rilke expresses how death gives us a new lease of life:

This labouring 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.

I took this photograph in my local park, The Waterworks, April 2020 .  I agree with Rilke's description of the swan's 'lumbering gait'. And at the same time, the majestic bird has a 'regal posture'.