Ideas of Stone

What is an idea that appears suddenly or after long reflection in space without the mind’s force of gravity? An idea that is formed summing up innumerable previous thoughts, polished by the passage of time, compacted by the weight of memories, cracked by doubts and by the uncertainties that insinuate themselves between the thoughts separating them?

It is a river stone that appears amid the branches of a tree.

A stone suspended amid the branches of a tree, separated from the soil by a structure that is not land and is not air, a stone that lies between the force of gravity and the force of the attraction of light.

A thought enclosed in a river stone. A thought with the shape of a skull. Stones in the riverbed like stones on roads covered by the steps of man. Steps that push seeds into the soil, seeds that push the leaves into the sky. The steps are leaves in the wind. The stones are skulls in the soil. My skull is a suspended stone.

A thought weighing three tons suspended amid the branches of a tree.

Ideas of Stone, Giuseppe Penone, 2005