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rick

@rickehling.bsky.social
988 followers 232 following 5.8K posts

🩺🚶✍️ 📷 🌿🌱🍽️ San Francisco 🌅 #poetry, #opinions, #flowers, #art, #awe #healthcare ©, or credited outrage (when I must). unlabeled AI slop gets a chop.

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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
#SkySunday #silentsunday #sunset #Lisbon 🇵🇹 📷 10/02/2026
Greeting the sunset from Castelo De São Jorge

I’m in Europe for a bit, first in sunny Portugal and then the canals and art in Amsterdam with my college classmates/friends

Please enjoy the view and excuse my longer absence and relative silence
(I’m happy to miss a few weeks of American news, the election run up, and all that unnecessary bulk mail.  I’ll be back in time to vote blue.)
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Canadian Paintings @canadianpaintings.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Leaf Pattern Franklin Carmichael 1922
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
#SkySunday #silentsunday #tallships #theBayBridge #theEmbarcadero #SFBay #Oakland #SanFrancisco #lookingeast #Cuauhtémoc 🌁🌉 🌊 🇲🇽 ©️Rick Ehling 📷 09/23/2026
The Mexican flag resting in a light breeze at the stern of a tall ship docked on the Embarcadero, the Bay Bridge and Oakland visible.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
For #haikusaturday , 3 wisps on fog (i) autumn dawn sun humming through fog’s lead muffle (ii) waking in fog dawn just hidden (iii) autumn chill sunrise scarved in fog © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 09/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (fog) #Haiku 🌁 🌫️🧣 #KarltheFog #SanFrancisco
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
November’s trees already whispering new fruit ©️Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/23/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (new buds) #Haiku #senryu 🍂🪾🌸🍎 🇺🇸🗳️
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
We eat what we grow This coming harvest — years of bitter roots ©️Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/23/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (harvest) #senryu 🇺🇸💸🗳️
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
#tallships #tallsails #Cuauhtémoc #navy 🇲🇽🌊🌁🌉 #SanFrancisco #somelines #lookingup © 📷 09/23/2026
Thanks to KQED News for the heads up, “the Mexican Navy’s tall ship Cuauhtémoc” is now “berthed on the Embarcadero in San Francisco for the next four days as part of a goodwill visit — where you can go aboard this 120-foot-high ship for free.”  It’s at the docks by the Exploratorium and she’s a beauty.
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KQED News @kqednews.kqed.org · 23/09/2026
ww2.kqed.org
A Tall Ship Is in San Francisco This Week – and You Can Go Aboard for Free
After passing under the Golden Gate Bridge Wednesday, the Mexican Navy’s tall ship Cuauhtémoc will be at the Embarcadero all week, and you can tour her for free.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
North in twilight Time now measured in leaf fall and calling geese ©️Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/22/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (equinox) #Haiku 🌆 🌎⏳🍂🪿
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
How would you describe your social media reach?
static.klipy.com
Funny Bird at Window Feeder
Alt: A small bird at a feeder by an outdoor window, again and again choosing the glass headbutt
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
#SmallPoemSunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social yes, more #JaneHirshfield #AReamofPaper “A deer rises onto her haunches to reach for an apple, though many fallen apples are on the ground.”
A REAM OF PAPER
I have a ream of paper, 
a cartridge of ink,

almonds,
coffee,
a wool scarf for warmth.

Whatever handcuffs the soul,
I have brought here.

Whatever distances the heart,
I have brought here.

A deer rises onto her haunches
to reach for an apple,

though many fallen apples are on the ground.

first in Southern Review, fall 2019, then ‘Ledger’ 2020, and now ‘The Asking’
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
#SFSidewalkHaiku #272 summer’s story’s written in sun’s passing pull © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 09/19/2026 📷 05/14/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (quill) #senryu #Haiku #haiga #senryusunday ☀️🌱 #acanthus #bearbreeches #SanFrancisco #BernalHeights
A north planted dwarf white bear’s breeches reaching for some sun
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
under golden leaves first aster — this year’s last blooms ©️ Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/13/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (dappled, first blossoms) #Haiku 🍂🎴
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
tick country a mob of backyard fawns flashing killer eyes © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 09/16/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (deer) #senryu 🦌 🦠 #SussexCounty #newjersey 🩺 🥾🪴 …it’s not only Lyme
nj.gov
Department of Health | Communicable Disease Service | Tickborne Diseases & Conditions
tick-borne disease
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
fire now ice and in her Spring flows watered life © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 09/14/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (Cascade) #Haiku #MtShasta 🌋 🗻 🖼️ #woodcut #WPA #FranzGeritz
Mt Shasta, a WPA era woodcut from 1937 by Franz Geritz

He was born in Budapest and immigrated to the US as a teen, was educated at the CCAC in the Bay Area and worked in the newspaper industry, eventually settling in LA.

His color woodcuts of California wilderness are highly collectible.
I am lucky to own a few - this one of Shasta, near where the Cascades originate at Mt Lassan.  Today its waters serve millions in water, in food, in fish.
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Canadian Paintings @canadianpaintings.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Cranberry Lake Franklin Carmichael 1931
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
#SmallPoemSunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social Today a bit more #JaneHirshfield #Tin “To be a train station of existence is no small matter.”
Tin

I studied much and remembered little.
But the world is generous, it kept offering figs and cheeses.
Never mind that soon I'll have to give it all back,
the world, the figs.
To be a train station of existence is no small matter.
It doesn't need to be Grand Central or Haydarpaşa Station. 
The engine shed could be low, windowed with coal dust
under a slat-shingled roof. It could be tin.
Another mystery bandaged with rivets and rubies.
Leaking cold and heat in both directions, as the earth does.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
another farewell tour the music — at least has aged well © Rick Ehling 09/12/2026 #senryusunday (festival) #senryu
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
#SkySunday #silentsunday #SanFrancisco #cablecar #CaliforniaStHill #lookingwest 📷 © Rick Ehling 09/06/2026
California Street and its cable car, fairly early on a fog less day (at least downtown)
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
city leaf storm silver foil alight in golden gingko ©️Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/08/2026📷 #haikusaturday #Haiku 🍂🍁💨🌁
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
In the 25 years since 9/11, the United States has spent $8 trillion+ on wars that have taken millions of lives in the name of fighting "terror." Can you imagine if we had instead invested those funds here on climate, health care, housing, and education?
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
in the waning we learn to love night in smoke, in gray slipping into shadow © Rick Ehling ✍🏼09/10/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (waning moon) #Haiku #tanka 🌒
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
still it comes
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Six years ago yesterday was Orange Sky Day 🟠 in #SanFrancisco (a world in🦠and on 🔥) Today bluest 🟦 and surprisingly clear for a heat wave starting our #NorCal summer 📷 #lookingup #California
Palms then sky, the view after my morning swim
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
monarchs heading South milkweed sways in iron wind © Rick Ehling 09/08/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (gusty) #Haiku #autumn 🦋🍂💨
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Happy #LaborDay #SanFrancisco #dolorespark #theCastro #theMission #gaybeach #fruitshelf ☀️⛱️🍑🏳️‍🌈 #lookingnortheast 📷 © 09/06/2026
Waiting for the JChurch after a day of walking at the edge of Dolores Park, just above the “fruit shelf”
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
last night was a night of dreaming most lost but the last one had me building a bicycle made out of insults and looking for the perfect insult/headlight…or was it a bell? (I’d call dibs but your poem will be different from mine)
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Yeah. New Jersey But mostly on names. (Firefly, hoagie, milkshake) 60 questions could have been one : Q. “what do you call the pork on a breakfast sandwich?” A. Taylor ham Or just ask me how I pronounce water, drawer, or mall
mydialect map pins me right to Jersey
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
each clocked click, a knock each dawn another, each wave, every cricketsong, just the world trying to synch with your heart ©️ Rick Ehling ✍️ 09/03/2026 #tankathursday (knock), #tanka, #5lines, #poetry ⏰🌅🌊🦗🫀
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
🎁 go for one last summer swim 🏊🏼‍♂️🌊⛱️☀️
nytimes.com
6 Cool-Water Beaches for Your Labor Day Getaway (Gift Article)
In this sweltering summer, a cool dip might be just what you need. Here are beaches where the water will help you beat the heat.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
if ICE, health care, and voter rights aren’t your outrage — the rose garden, the wading pool, the lawn, the ballroom, the Kennedy Center 🇺🇸 🗳️ 🌎 #novemberiscoming
youtube.com
"Big Yellow Taxi" Joni Mitchell "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"
YouTube video by ECO Scouts
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
#SFSidewalkHaiku #271 late summer roses aglow as leaves fade gold © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 08/30/2026 📷 2026 🌹🥀🍃🍂 #SanFrancisco #NoeValley
A backlit sidewalk rose, its leaves happier in other weather.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
🕯️🕯️🕯️ #wendellberry #poetry #thehiddensinger
The Hidden Singer

— Wendell Berry

The gods are less for their love of praise.
Above and below them all is a spirit that needs nothing
but its own wholeness, its health and ours.
It has made all things by dividing itself.
It will be whole again.
To its joy we come together—
the seer and the seen, the eater and the eaten,
the lover and the loved.
In our joining it knows itself. It is with us then,
not as the gods whose names crest in unearthly fire,
but as a little bird hidden in the leaves
who sings quietly and waits, and sings.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
1061 #AlphabetChallenge #WeekIforIntegers ©️Rick Ehling 📷08/23/2026 #SanFrancisco #MUNI #morningcommute #JChurch #FMarket
Every mornings the historic trams parade down Church before splitting of in the Castro to start their runs down Market.  I usually wait for the next train so I can sit all the way to the Bay.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
After diagnosis, chemo, consolidation, one last biopsy Just another day © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 08/30/2026 #tanka #poetry #5lines #survivorship 🦀🩺🌅🤞🏼
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
for #SmallPoemSunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social a bit of #JaneHirshfield #MeetingtheLightCompletely “Each time, the found world surprises— that is its nature.” "What fools we were, not to have seen."
Meeting the Light Completely
Jane Hirshfield

Even the long-beloved
was once
an unrecognized stranger.

Just so,
the chipped lip
of a blue-glazed cup,
blown field
of a yellow curtain,
might also,
flooding and falling,
ruin your heart.

A table painted with roses.
An empty clothesline.

Each time,
the found world surprises—
that is its nature.

And then
what is said by all lovers:
“What fools we were, not to have seen.”

Page 96, in “The Asking: New & Selected Poems”
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
🎁🌱🌸🌼 #dahlia #sanfrancisco
nytimes.com
The Delight of San Francisco’s Dahlias (Gift Article)
One hundred years ago, dahlias became the city’s official flower. They have gained new popularity as an antidote to the modern world.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
leaves fall in brown geese stream south in skein this grief still green © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 08/26/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (geese) #Haiku #senryu 🍂 🗓️ #haikusaturday
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Canadian Paintings @canadianpaintings.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Back River Vegetable Gardens Sarah Robertson 1952
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
i moon lit the redwood form a fairy circle telescope ii moon lit, a fairy circle telescope trees touching stars © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 08/26/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (full moon, grove) #Haiku #forestbathing #shinrin-yoku #森林浴🌲🌕🔭🌌 2 takes, even if yesterday’s lunar eclipse was wrapped in fog here
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Alexandra Petri @petridishes.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
the year is 2027. gas costs $83 and lettuce is at war with us. however every location on every map now says AMERICA
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
bathed in Sequoia every morning new seedlings circling stump © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 08/25/2026 📷 05/2023 #dailyhaikuprompt (evergreen) #Haiku 🌲🌱🏞️ ⏳#California #ButanoStatePark #SanMateo
Coastal redwoods, here at Butano State Park, after the CZU Lightning Complex fire a park in recovery
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
🕯️🕯️🕯️
youtube.com
Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - "Islands in the Stream" | CMA Awards 1983
YouTube video by CMA
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Summer bursting Tomato and peach racing To can or to rot © Rick Ehling ✍🏼 08/16/2026 #dailyhaikuprompt (peaches) #senryu #Haiku 🍅🍑🌱🥫🍽️ 🏁 Can there be too much abundance?
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
“What we've got here is a failure to communicate“
Without naming the Film, say a line that would make any true fan immediately recognize the film?
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Late August = peak stone fruit Which require little prep - bite, slice, salad, toss w/ pasta, top a pizza, grill, bake a galette But #MarianBurros recipe for a #PlumTorte is really hard to beat if you want to show off As are the adaptations 🌸🍑🥮🍽️ Here with French Prunes, almond, and ginger
A Marian Burros reciped Plum Torte - here made with fresh French Prunes, slivered almond and a bit of candied ginger.
The French prune is the Petite Prune d’Agen, aka the Prune d’Ente, aka the Plum of either.  They are petite and so so sweet, honey sweet. 
Brought to California with the Gold Rush in the 1850s and first grown in San Jose.  The California prune industry is based on drying these, but fresh they are a real treat, one I scour Farmers Markets for in their brief fresh window.  Their ripeness and sugar content makes them unsuitable for long shipping or shelving (so grocery stores and retail)…but the best backyard heirloom.
Chill may be an issue - but I’m going to try to grow one.  The internet is mixed but my favorite fruit tree nursery says they’ll do in my zone.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
🎁. Go for a swim. 🏊🏼‍♂️🤿🛟🇺🇸
nytimes.com
Come On In, the Water’s Fine (at These 6 Wild Swimming Spots) (Gift Article)
A summer swim in wild waters can bring escape and exhilaration. Here are six places on state and national park land across the United States to backstroke, butterfly or just beat the heat.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
A recent survey found that 92% of U.S. adults have delayed or avoided medical care due to high costs. Meanwhile, a new study from Yale estimates that Medicare for All would save over 114,000 lives and $1 trillion a year. If this country was truly “pro-life,” we would have universal healthcare.
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
“They asked too much and offered too little” A brickless border wall…Built #senryusunday #senryu 🇨🇦🇺🇸
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rick @rickehling.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
#SkySunday #silentsunday #SanFrancisco #CoitTower #telegraphhill #lookingwest ©️📷 08/21/2026
Coir Tower and Telegraph Hill.  This is now a few times a week view as both the pool I use and my gym are at the eastern edges of the Embaracadero. I haven’t seen the parrots (Cherry-headed Conures) recently.
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