To explore "Mantis" is to explore language as organic material in formation, information as material. The work is bit-mined, one might say, from "The Maintains" by Clark Coolidge taking as rudiment processes of jazz improvisation, particularly as practiced by musician who may take a single step, and then follow where that step leads. To follow "Mantis" where it leads is to enter the forest, the cavern, the word hoard, and to find oneself as "light" or "as rose," and to cross that place into a realm of creative possibility, where the final "as if" may mean "open to everything." -- Cover, page 4