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 G

Grave inscription

Form
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

Text carved on a tombstone or burial marker, often brief and commemorative.

Detailed Definition
Verses carved or inscribed on tombstones, gravestones, and burial monuments to commemorate the deceased. Must be brief enough for practical carving while meaningful and enduring. Traditional openings include "Here lies..." or "Sacred to the memory of..." Can be borrowed from famous poems or originally composed. Should remain legible and relevant across time, speaking both to contemporary mourners and future generations encountering the grave. Related to epitaph composition but specifically referring to physically inscribed memorial texts designed for permanent display on burial markers.
Example
Example in poetry:
In ancient Rome, grave inscription appears in epitaphs: “Sit tibi terra levis” (May the earth rest lightly on you); In Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son,” grave inscription laments: “For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, / As what he loves may never like too much”; In W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” grave inscription transforms poet into landscape; In Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break,” grave inscription understates: “A four foot box, a foot for every year”; In Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me,” grave inscription becomes birth song; In Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” grave inscription addresses absent father.
Additional Notes
Verses carved on tombstones and grave markers. Must be brief enough for stone carving while meaningful. Can be original or borrowed from famous poems. "Here lies..." is traditional opening. Should endure through time and weather. Related to epitaph composition but specifically referring to actual carved inscriptions.
Also Known As
epitaph tombstone inscription gravestone verse memorial carving
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