art the forest & bare the trees. Make an efes. The Book of books may be a forest of woods, as the page is a clearing, the monster is a letter (for example, Y, who reads the leaves), a river is a mirror, the underworld is supernal, the portal is the shadow over the shades, efes are all about (as wings, as aisles, as the edge of the woods), ††† are trees, The Slough of Decayed Language is near to The Cave that projects itself, or †The Stand of Ob†, shadows fall upon a small shed / larger inside, & ghosts (presence of the dead, who were not dead & are now) sweep every path. All of which are characters. The woods are also a form & a counting, a(n) (in)formal progression : The Book is a profusion of forms that make & remake themselves page by page, for The Woods to exist. Each page an Or. So there is The Book / Or / The Woods,and there is a Prologue that appears before & before, & here is a Preface, just as there is, in a collection perhaps to (have) come,Return to the Woods, & there may be other stands, for as Jabès & Waldrop say, together & separate(ly), 1 writes 1 book for all 1’s time. So 1 may enter here or elsewhere, from there or there, 1 time & another, & 1 is in the woods & also returning. As are we all, whether we are in these woods or another forest altogether.