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

beaver

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 beaver is a large, semi-aquatic rodent known for building dams and lodges, symbolizing industry, cooperation, and the transformation of wilderness by purposeful labor.

Detailed Definition
The beaver is the great engineer of the animal world, and in poetry it stands for creative effort, communal living, and the reshaping of environment to suit need. Its dam-building offers a vivid metaphor for human civilization's impact on nature, both constructive and disruptive. Poets admire the beaver's patience, its sharp teeth as tools, and its flat tail as a warning signal, using it to explore themes of persistence, the value of work, and the delicate balance between altering a landscape and living within it.
Example
Example in poetry:
Mary Howitt's "Beaver" describes it as "gentle and mild as a lamb at play" while building its dam.; A poem might depict the beaver's nocturnal labor: "See how the beaver works all night without Light. In the darkness he builds his dam".; The beaver can symbolize industry and transformation, as in "I was born to watch the beavers' chewing flood the pond".; Its dam-building can be a metaphor for human impact, as in "It’s a standoff And the Beaver is Pissed off".; The animal's role in history is noted in "Cursed with a luxurious pelt Sought after by European furriers".
Additional Notes
The beaver's dam-building activities make it one of poetry's most effective symbols for human industry, environmental transformation, and the creative impulse to reshape the world. Mary Howitt's "Beaver" emphasizes the animal's gentle, methodical nature, while other poets have used the beaver to explore the costs of human intervention in natural systems. The beaver's lodges and dams offer metaphors for shelter, community, and the infrastructure of survival. In North American poetry, the beaver also carries historical weight as a symbol of the fur trade and colonial expansion. When writing, you might contrast the beaver's constructive labor with destructive human actions, or use its nocturnal work ethic to represent hidden, persistent effort that only becomes visible through its results.
Also Known As
dam architect industrious builder lodge master
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