A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter B

bat

Fauna
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A bat is a flying mammal with leathery wings, active at night and using echolocation, symbolizing darkness, rebirth, and the liminal space between day and night.

Detailed Definition
The bat's twilight flight and upside-down roosting have made it a creature of mystery and dread in many poetic traditions, often associated with caves, ruins, and the supernatural. Yet its role as a pollinator and insect-eater also casts it as a beneficial guardian of the night. Poets use the bat to explore themes of reversed perspective, the uncanny, and the sensory worlds beyond human perception. Its emergence at dusk becomes a metaphor for the threshold between consciousness and dream, or for the release of hidden fears and desires into the open air.
Example
Example in poetry:
Theodore Roethke's "The Bat" opens with "By day the bat is cousin to the mouse. He likes the attic of an aging house".; Gladys Cromwell's poem addresses the bat: "Spread thy drab wings wide. Cool is the river. Glide Between the trees".; A poet might use the bat to symbolize the liminal, as in "The bat, that master of departures, is lost to night".; The bat's echolocation can represent inner vision, as in "bats hang downside, looking inside, teach me what's inside".; Its emergence at dusk can evoke the threshold between day and night.
Additional Notes
Bats occupy a unique position in poetry, straddling the boundary between bird and mammal, day and night, the familiar and the uncanny. Theodore Roethke's "The Bat" captures the creature's domestic eeriness, while Gladys Cromwell's poem emphasizes its twilight, riverine associations. In Gothic and Romantic poetry, the bat often signals supernatural presence, madness, or the release of repressed desires. Contemporary poets have reclaimed the bat as a symbol of ecological interconnection, highlighting its role as a pollinator and insectivore. The bat's echolocation offers a compelling metaphor for alternative ways of knowing—understanding the world through sound rather than sight. When using this term, consider whether your bat represents fear and mystery or the quiet, essential work of the night.
Other Meanings of “bat”
Also Known As
nocturnal flyer echo locator cave dweller club racket
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