William Hogarth made the world with etchings
of which I heard when I was young
and saw a few years later
in a London museum.
His city was raw---too rough
for unseasoned idealists
(like I was then) to fathom.

There was a lesson, though,
in those sketches I did not see
'til now; I was to live,
jotting my own impressions
on my brain,
each line indelibly framed
against a day when I'd need
to tell someone, to teach
that life has meaning,
and pain is the price
of learning what.