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 C

Chongyang Festival

Historical Festival
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

Chinese autumn festival on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, featuring chrysanthemum wine, mountain climbing, and ancestor veneration

Detailed Definition
Also known as the Double Ninth Festival, Chongyang celebrates longevity and wards off misfortune through climbing heights, drinking chrysanthemum wine, and wearing cornel twigs. Originating in the Han dynasty, it honors elders and ancestors. In classical Chinese poetry—especially by Du Fu and Li Qingzhao—it evokes melancholy, exile, and the passage of time. The festival’s imagery of autumnal clarity and solitude makes it a poignant symbol for poets reflecting on aging, memory, and the beauty of transience.
Example
Example in poetry:
Li Bai’s poems reference Chongyang Festival’s chrysanthemum wine and mountain climbing; Du Fu’s “On the Double Ninth” laments exile during Chongyang’s family reunions; Poets use Chongyang to explore aging, remembrance, and autumnal reflection; In diasporic verse, Chongyang becomes a symbol of cultural continuity; Modern poets contrast Chongyang’s joy with loneliness in urban settings; Chongyang appears in eco-poetry as a celebration of high places and seasonal clarity.
Additional Notes
Chongyang Festival (Double Ninth, ninth day of ninth lunar month) is a Chinese observance honoring elders, involving chrysanthemum wine, mountain climbing, and wearing dogwood; it blends Confucian filial piety with Daoist longevity themes; poets like Du Fu used it to meditate on aging, exile, and seasonal change—rich for cross-cultural or diasporic poetry exploring memory and ancestral respect.
Also Known As
Double Ninth Festival Chung Yeung Festival
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