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

Coot

Birds
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 dark waterbird with a white bill and frontal shield, often found in freshwater lakes.

Detailed Definition
Coots appear in poetry as symbols of unassuming persistence and communal life. Though less glamorous than swans or herons, their steady paddling and social behavior reflect humility and adaptability. Poets use coots to contrast surface appearances with inner vitality or to evoke the quiet dignity of overlooked creatures. Their presence in wetland settings also connects them to themes of reflection, liminality, and the hidden depths beneath placid surfaces.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Seamus Heaney’s wetland imagery, the coot’s quiet paddling evokes the submerged histories of Irish bogs and lakes; The coot appears in pastoral poetry as a humble alternative to swans—less regal but equally at home on the water; In ecopoetry, the coot’s white bill and frontal shield become markers of wetland health, its presence signaling ecosystem balance; Poets contrast the coot’s unassuming nature with its surprisingly aggressive defense of nests, using it to explore hidden fierceness; Its habit of diving rather than flying when startled makes it a metaphor for emotional retreat or introspection; The coot’s communal roosting inspires poems about collective survival in marginal spaces.
Additional Notes
Coot: A dark, duck-like waterbird with a white bill and frontal shield, the coot often symbolizes awkwardness or ungraceful movement (“bald as a coot” references its white patch). Yet ecologically, it’s a skilled diver and social bird. In poetry, it may represent overlooked beauty or the dignity of the ordinary, especially in wetland or marsh settings.
Also Known As
American Coot Mud Hen Bald Coot
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