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

costus

Perfumery
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

Costus is an earthy, woody, and animalic root note with oily, incense-like facets.

Detailed Definition
Costus is a rare and pungent perfume material derived from the roots of the Saussurea costus plant, a member of the daisy family native to the high-altitude regions of the Himalayas. Its scent is intensely complex, combining woody, animalic, and urinous notes with a distinct, earthy muskiness, making it a challenging and powerful ingredient. In poetic terms, costus is an evocative symbol of the ancient, the hidden, and the mystical. Its origin in the remote Himalayas lends it an air of exoticism and inaccessibility, while its use in traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine connects it to the wisdom of ancient healing practices. Poets invoke costus to suggest a deep, almost sacred earthiness, a connection to prehistoric landscapes and forgotten rituals. Its rare and pungent nature makes it a perfect metaphor for the esoteric and the unfamiliar, for experiences and emotions that are raw, difficult to articulate, and possessing a strange, compelling beauty. It represents an olfactory journey to the high mountains, a sensory encounter with something both primal and profoundly ancient, making it a potent symbol in poems that explore mysticism, the past, and the hidden depths of the earth.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Costus root breathed earth, leather, and an animalic shadow through the ritual poem”; “Costus and damp wool haunted the old trunk,” gives a vintage, tactile scent image; Because natural costus is rare in modern perfumery, writers may invoke it as an exotic historical material; Its rooty, musky profile can deepen poems about soil, medicine, or ancestral objects
Additional Notes
Costus root delivers earthy, woody, animalic, oily incense-like intensity, used sparingly for deep, primal base effects in oriental or chypre fragrances. In literary analysis, costus evokes ancient Himalayan remedies and hidden depths for mystical or root-themed poems; usage tip: layer costus with vetiver for enhanced earthiness or florals for contrast in exploration of the subconscious. Related to root notes, animalic, and costus oil, it highlights rare botanicals. Students learn its challenging intensity parallels bold poetic risks that reward with profound resonance. Professors can discuss ethical wild harvesting, connecting to eco-criticism and sustainable imagery in contemporary verse.
Also Known As
costus root costus oil Saussurea root kuth (Hindi) patchouli-like (in some contexts)
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