The Baron in the Trees

This gesture of moving the branch as if waiting for another land to appear, this plunging of his gaze deeper and deeper into the undulating distance as if hoping never to see the horizon, but to succeed, perhaps, in making out some place, alas, far too far away — this was the first real sign of exile…

Italo Calvino

The word connects the visible trace with the invisible thing... Like a frail emergency bridge flung over an abyss.