Cathay

The Twelve Images of Sorrow are: the autumn moon behind three black branches, a mirror when it does not reflect a face, a single whit plum-petal hanging from a bough, the eyes of a beautiful lady at dusk, a garden in summer rain, frosty breath on an autumn night, an old man gazing at a river, a faded fan, a dead sparrow in the snow, a lover leaving his mistress at dawn, an old abandoned hourglass, the black from of the wild duck against the red setting sun. These are the sorrows known to all men, but there is a sorrow that is known only in Cathay. Our sorrow is the sorrow hidden in the depths of the rich, deep-blue summer afternoons, the sorrow of sunshine on the blossoming plum tree, the sorrow that lies like a faint purple shadow in the iris of a beautiful, laughing girl.

"Cathay," In the Penny Arcade

Steven Millhauser, 1981