Decades Full of Dreams

I thought a long time about posting this series of photos and haikus. I put this together over a month ago, then the mood to post it passed. I was growing tired of being Rexroth's Daughter, and wanted to introduce myself as I am. My name is Robin, but I am not sure it really matters.
I am one of four kids. The earliest photos only show the youngest three. My older brother is 3 1/2 years older, so he didn't hang around with us when we were little and too boring to be his friends. Later, when we were all in our teens, we started to smoke pot together and those were the days that cemented our familial connections. Even now when we laugh, we can all flash back to the same moment. The four of us living together was like life on a very wild commune. Our parents thought we were mad. We were.
I think the photo that may require the most explanation is the one of me when I was 14. Behind me is a table full of relatives. My parents had thrown a party for my uncle's in-laws who had flown to New Jersey from California. Everyone is sitting in chairs, except for me. I am striking a very odd pose, and I know that I was influenced by the news of the times, the era, The Beatles (Relax your mind and float down stream). Shortly after that photo was taken, I parted my hair down the middle, grew it down to my waist, ironed it straight, painted flowers on my legs, and plastered peace signs on everything. Those were the 60s. Later, when I was building a cabin in southern Oregon in 1974, my parents came up to hammer in a few nails with us. That's my father in the picture. And that photo of the smiling group of long-haired folks in 1975 is of my siblings and me.
This is my life as I remember it.
1953 1 year old
boy girl twins emerge
each a lonely half of two
connected always

1959 7 years old
this trio of love
grounds my sense of place on earth
camaraderie

1966 14 years old
buddhist monk headlines
tells of self-immolation
sacrifice for peace
1971 19 years old
lover looks at me
sees beauty where I did not
shy heart awakens

1974 22 years old
back to land movement
buy ten acres, build cabin
bake pies, coleman stove


1975 23 years old
heart's excavation
finds deep in cells, blood, and bone
our shared history

1985 33 years old
lose love and falter
seek solace, find Darwin and
fossil ecstacy


1995 43 years old
love comes thundering
two broken hearts try again
perfect confluence
2005 53 years old
crone's age upon me
hope to be fearless at death
so, wink at future