Existence, he said,
is beyond the power of words to define.
Existence is temporal,
the essence of existence universal.

Okay, so essence spawns existence:
the impulse behind Picasso's Reclining Nude,
the blueprint of the Brooklyn Bridge,
the thought behind the Ode On A Grecian Urn,
the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.

I guess one could say that essence is always--
yesterday, next week, now;
like dinosaurs and space monkeys coexisting.
Am I but a flickering shadow on some cosmic sideshow,
a never ending film on the curving reel of time?

Does my existence manifest perhaps in a process
that began for me several billion years ago
from a blending of stardust in some primordial soup?

Did I not evolve by way of some selective process
of replication and mutation?

I  have the hint of a gill, a tailbone, tooth of a canine.

Conceived of Laotse's universal seed,
am I not an aspect of all life preceding me,
a suggestion of all life to come?

Might I imply that my being here was predetermined,
that I happened in the natural flow of things?
Simply because I am here?

From wonder into wonder, said Laotse,
existence opens.