I watched a tiny video from the Jimmy Kimmel show the other day and in it a person questioned people, asking those he met to ‘name a book’. Such a general question. As I watched I tried to answer in my solitude and drew a blank. Then I got up from bed and thought about the video and the negative remarks that were made on the social media area as others watched and seemed to get angry that people could not name a book. I wondered what I would do if I were questioned about it on the street, being filmed. Then I went to a bench by my wall, sat in the dark and thought. Name a Book, I said, and As I lay Dying, in Leaves of Grass, I kept my Journal of a Solitude in this question that I am certain is a level in Dante’s Inferno but many American Gods might scoff at it and if so I could clobber them with the heft of Princeton’s Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, which to some is Milk and Honey and to others a Soul on Ice, and then figured I am Not Dead Yet so time to write to be Moving On. Started thinking of social media and how we, I say we but most likely should simply say I, too late, jump to conclusions faster than ever before. But honestly, what do I know about that? I do know that we humans are creatures who have a strong tendency to assume, and how it is easy to leap into some settlement of thought, then neglect breathing deep and think for a moment longer. Our reactions, my reactions, to many social media comments may be faster than to a spider dangling over my head at the breakfast table. So on another day I think, and think more as I get myself ready for bed, brushing my teeth, washing my face and flossing my teeth. Then gargling minty mouthwash and — multi tasking — doing a Jesus thing, washing my feet as I get ready to enter a metaphorical house – a bed – and visit with spirits/souls in my dreams, in my sleep. Jesus thing, I say, though he is said to have washed the feet of others. Now I’m getting into a big theological statement, an assumption that when I wash my own feet I am being my own Jesus. A statement that takes me to a place where I may say that he, or that God, whatever mysterious entity we choose to name, is within all of us, touches each of us. After thinking that I begin to bring all of the people considered to be holy saviors, along with tons of good things on this planet, into a mental picture, and I clump them all together in a big symbol of goodness in this crazy world. Crazy world full of beautiful shapes, forms, colors, all different. Sometimes we, I, may think of them, could name them and be content, heartbeat of consciousness that does not really run in a stream, may flood, could over bloom close to a luscious springtime full of blades of grass, a cat in the yard hunting that sparrow, bombed by a thrasher who landed on the palo verde tree skipping the thorny rose near the pretty pansy, luckily miles from the poison ivy, leaves of three let them be, stand in the Leaves of Grass then move to the next book, name it, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson: The brain is wider than the sky/for put them side by side/ the one the other will contain/with ease and you beside. Name something. I watch. Breathe deep. Stream on.