from the party of “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength”, a new enemy - Plato’s Republic cause what they really fear is a “just man” i can’t wait for the return of education and justice 🇺🇸 🤠 #education #whatiswoke 🎁

illusion ? this idea of middle consensus midst elusive as mist ✍️ Rick Ehling 01/08/2026 #tankathursday #tanka (midst) 🌫️ #poetry

peace is not a prize or trophy 🕊️

what life isn’t run and pause, wave and retreat beach shifting sand to sea or dune grass, rest, and nest © Rick Ehling ✍️ 01/02/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (plover) #tanka

started the 2026 cleaning - pantry, frig, freezer, and body 🍽️ 1, a play on Hoppin’ John 🍽️ 2, a “leftover pasta bake”, nod to a Maltese recipe @nigella.bsky.social posted, subbing mushrooms, greens, white wine, ricotta for beef, red, milk (all needed to be used) 🍝 #eatyourveggies #dryjanuary 🩺

awash in blue north south east west serene cerulean cloudless, after last storm resting for the next © Rick Ehling ✍️ 01/01/2026 #tankathursday #tanka (blue sky)

…now i spend way too much time trying to figure out what that even means 🥳 🫨

i toss another quarter to the rage machine …and the hearts line up © Rick Ehling ✍️ #senryusunday #senryu #SmallPoemSunday 💻 🎰

hope sleeps under stars resting on a bed of hay penniless, giving © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/22/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (hay) #Haiku ✨ 🐪 🐪 🐪

Wrapped in leaves and snow The Earth rests through winter Planning and hoping © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/22/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (quilt) #haiku ❄️ 🛌 🍂 🌎

merry christmas🎄from #banksy #commentary 🖼️ 🎁 via the NYTimes

we all have our holiday favorites and even on years when i’m not feeling particularly festive i find comfort in music and memories my favorite Christmas album remains The Roches, “We Three Kings” #theroches #wethreekings 🎶 🎄 what about you? www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5bP...

“panem et circenses“ - Juvenal I started to write something amusing using “Panem” about summer 2026’s youth athletic contest and institution name changes - but why bother? these 🤡🤡🤡 gave up on bread ( affordability) ages ago they’re only about circus now 🇺🇸

Life and snow Drift and flow Settling beside fixed objects © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/15/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (snow drift) #Haiku #3lines #poetry

The Bay Area is in a cold snap Perfect chili, soup, and stew weather. 🌶️ 🥘 🍽️ I rarely use a recipe for chili anymore but I did this week - subbing in gifted wild 🐗 and ground 🦬 and a 16 🫘 dry blend 🎁 #slowcooker

often the secret ingredient is time © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/14/2025 🍜 ☀️ #dailyhaikuprompt (stew) #senryu #poetry

#SFSidewalkHaiku #245 Winter sky, cold blue and crisp Scented with five spice, tea, and lacquered duck © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/13/2025🏮🌁 ❄️ #haikusaturday #Haiku #favoritethings #blueskyartshow 🍜 🚶📷 12/12/2025

Winter’s cold breath Puffing up this hill an aging Little Engine © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/07/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (breath, cool evening) #Haiku #senryu ❄️ 🚂 “i think i can”

A big advance, folks, for off-the-shelf, universal, engineered (base-edited) T cells achieving complete response vs incurable leukemia in several patients www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

#SFSidewalkHaiku #244 To the north snowfall But a whisper here Petals falling ©️ Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/06/2025 📷 04/13/2025 🌱 Mexican Orange Blossom #dailyhaikuprompt (north) #Haiku

#SFSidewalkHaiku #243 in december sun camellia shows us nature cares not for naming © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/06/2025, 📷 11/28 #haikusaturday #Haiku #senryu ❄️ 🌹 🌱 “a rose by any other name…”

Drop an old person you're going to turn into in the future (i’d say i’m 70% there some days)

…so much for “color experts” who, like many in the media, are too fascinated by ⚪️ (favored by many currently in power) or an increasingly rancid 🍑 but 🇺🇸 voters seem pretty clear that the 2026 “color of the year” will be blue 🔵 (in all her shades) #bluewave #election2026

“The French eat about 37 million pounds of snails every year... Much of this consumption happens around Christmas and the New Year, as evidenced by the inevitable annual appearance of holiday escargot recipes in French magazines.” 🇫🇷 🍽️ 🎄❄️ 🐌 🎁

#SFSidewalkHaiku # 242 Each berry a gift, a jewel, fuel Nature provides for migrants © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/04/2025 📷 12/01 #Haiku #redberries #hawthorn 🌱 🪶 #migration #advent

each storm a canvas this winter moon painting in drifts shimmering blue © Rick Ehling ✍️ 12/03/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (moon, paint) #Haiku

#Florence #Tuscany 🇮🇹 from a slanted roundel window in the #MuseodelBargello 📷 © Rick Ehling 10/24/2022 #alphabetchallenge #weekWforWindows

retirement my cashmere overcoat goes to my nephew © Rick Ehling ✍️ 11/30/2025 #senryusunday #senryu 👔

A turnip by any other name would be a rutabaga ©️ Rick Ehling ✍️ 11/28/25 #dailyhaikuprompt (turnip) 🫜 #senryu

spending no 💸 today, or even this week, hardly seems like much after what i spent building up to 🦃 (and I’d like to buy my mom a wreath and a 🎄) i’ve not been big on Giving Tuesdays, timing my gifts at 🎉 and my 🎂 this Tuesday 12/02, however, i’m giving to foster kids, food banks, and immigrants

#onward the start of a winter hike at #fortfunston #SanFrancisco #caesious ( another beautiful every vowel words {in order too}, in its alternate spelling) #alphabetchallenge #weekVforVowels 🔵 🌚 📷 MDL, 12/26/2024

#SFSidewalkHaiku #241 in this race with frost my heart sides with stubborn losers © Rick Ehling ✍️ 11/25/2025 📷 11/08/2025 🌱 #dailyhaikuprompt (frost) #senryu #california #autumn

A little poem for your Thanksgiving.

pretty much sums up much of what our rush to deport is costing us - a nurse and mother, an evangelical at that (while we hear about persecuted Christians in Africa) then add the costs of detention and separation and the uneasy 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 border glad it ended OK for her 🎁 #ICE #immigration #asylum

#up looking up…through a giant #sequoia (gotta love a word with all the vowels - like education or automobile) #alphabetchallenge #weekVforVowels🌲 #sanfrancisco 📷 from 12/2019

'Cause nothing compares Nothing compares …to you

Thanksgiving At this table, at least Still speaking freely © Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/28/2025 #senryusunday #senryu 🇺🇸 🦃🍗 #smallpoemsunday

Robert Hayden What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?

yellow, gold, and red jaundiced, tea stained, tarnished all what remains of Spring © Rick Ehling ✍️ 11/17/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (rake) #Haiku #senryu 🍃 🍂

turned the heat on today, a first since spring rains stopped one of the markers that winter’s approaching in SF not that’s it’s ever really cold, or hot, for long but it’s a wet windy chill when it comes and at 3:30 it’s also time for lighting (also oddly early) #SanFrancisco

as fall stiffens into cold a bit of #AEHousman for #SmallPoemSunday 🍂🌨️ 🕯️ @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

#SFSidewalkHaiku #240 Autumn dawn perhaps sweeter in brief crisp light Til snow, still blooming ©️Rick Ehling ✍️ 11/10/2025 #dailyhaikuprompt (first snow) #Haiku 🌱 🌧️ 🍂 🌨️

…only ones ever making money off this are lawyers and political fundraisers wonder what a decade of delays and court costs will be - until this too dies like those who propose it

country charts 🤠 🎶 are now topped by an #AIartist (owned anonymously) with just enough grit and mississippi delta in their shtick, singing about “kicking rocks” and living through hell to people who have actually “been beat down” …and they’re buying it as authentic don’t hate the player I guess? 🇺🇸

#SFSidewalkHaiku #239 fading autumn blue hydrangea graying into snowballs © Rick Ehling ✍️ 11/11/2025, 📷 10/26 #dailyhaikuprompt (fading) #Haiku 🍂❄️ #SanFrancisco

#alphabetchallenge #weekTforTelevision, 📷 02/09/2025 #SiliconValley (though I’ve never seen the show) #SanFrancisco from #SkylineBoulevard (State Route 25) between Redwood City and San Mateo #lookingnorth #scape #bluesky

a bit on the drakes, mother and son, by me today #SmallPoemSunday #poetry #ekphrastic ✍️ 🎶 🇬🇧 #thedrakes @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

a bronze chair mimicking a castoff, throwing a nice shadow in the Pacific sun a bit of comfort and #publicart #streetart while waiting for the MUNI (#NJudah) #SanFrancisco and a bit late but under the wire for #alphabetchallenge #weekSforShadows

let the “serfification” of 🇺🇸 continue apparently we’re all to be renters but also responsible for maintenance costs and taxes (and are some of these newer homes being built even designed to last 50 years?) let’s insure NEW generational wealth takes generations to build 🧵/1