He glides upon the basin, like a white sleigh, 
from cloud to cloud. For he is hungry only for the snowy clouds 
that he sees born, move, and become lost in the water.
 
He desires to grab one from the waters. He aims with his beak, 
and he plunges suddenly, his flight dressed in snow.

Then like a woman's arm emerging from a sleeve, he withdraws. 

He has nothing. 

He sees: the scared clouds have disappeared. 

He stays disenchanted only a moment, 
for the clouds tarry a little before returning, and, 
over there, where the water's undulations die, 
here is one forming anew. 

Softly, on his little pillow of feathers, 
the swan paddles and approaches. . . . 

He tires himself out fishing for vain reflections, 
and perhaps he will die, victim of this illusion, 
before catching a single piece of cloud. 

But what am I saying? 

Each time he plunges, he digs with his beak 
into nourishing silt and returns with a worm.
 
He fattens himself like a goose.