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

cyclical return

Structure
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 compositional technique where the poem ends by echoing or returning to its beginning

Detailed Definition
Cyclical return is a structural or thematic device in which a poem concludes by echoing its beginning—through repeated lines, mirrored imagery, seasonal motifs, or narrative loops—thereby evoking natural, mythic, or psychological cycles of renewal, inevitability, or eternal recurrence. This technique creates a sense of closure that is also open-ended, suggesting that endings contain beginnings. Effective cyclical returns feel transformed by the journey: the final iteration should carry new emotional or intellectual weight, avoiding mechanical repetition in favor of resonant recurrence that deepens the poem’s meditation on time and change.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem ending where it began: “I walked into the woods… / …and stepped out where I started”; Seasons cycle from spring to winter and back to spring in final stanza; Narrative returns to the same kitchen table after a lifetime of travel; Poem opens and closes with identical line: “The sea remembers every name”; Circular structure where final image mirrors the first: a lit candle
Additional Notes
Cyclical return describes a structural or thematic loop where a poem ends where it began—through repeated lines, mirrored images, or seasonal motifs. This reflects mythic, natural, or psychological cycles and evokes inevitability or renewal. Effective in meditative or ritual poetry, but avoid mechanical repetition; the return should feel earned and transformed by the journey.
Also Known As
Palingenesis Recursive repetition Ring return
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