new meme hosted by moi: captivating thursday (1)

So I decided I'm starting a new meme, which I've knighted Sir Captivating Thursday of the Week. Only kidding :) Captivating Thursday it is (and yes I suck at alliteration and titling so no snazzy-cool-meme-rhyming title, haha).

The idea is this: since I post beautiful (if random) things on this blog when I can, I thought I'd elevate it into a real meme. I love posting pictures, quotes, and music and getting to share things that sing to my soul. I'd also like to start posting including poetry and art and videos or anything that I've come across that I think is captivating or beautiful. Pretty loose guidelines, eh? And since everyone has such different ideas of beauty, it'll be lovely too see what you guys come up if you decide to participate :)

Here's the official description:

Captivating Thursday is a meme hosted by me that showcases beautiful things--whether it be photos, quotes, poetry, music, videos, or anything else that I happen upon.

Here it goes:

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

-William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees — my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being."

-Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

"How frail the human heart must be - a mirrored pool of thought. "

-Sylvia Plath

"Morning in the Burned House" by Margaret Atwood (courtesy of poemhunter)

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.

Are you participating in this meme? Link your post here :)