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 K

Kite

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 medium-sized raptor known for its graceful soaring and forked tail.

Detailed Definition
Kites appear in poetry as symbols of surveillance, freedom, and aerial perspective. Their effortless flight and keen eyesight evoke themes of detachment, observation, and spiritual elevation. In some cultures, kites are scavengers, linking them to themes of decay and renewal. Poets use kites to explore the tension between predator and poet—both watching from above—and to reflect on the ethics of witnessing, whether of nature, war, or human suffering.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Ted Hughes’ “Hawk Roosting,” though a hawk, the kite shares raptor symbolism—soaring surveillance and detached power; Poets describe the red kite’s forked tail and effortless soaring to evoke freedom and aerial perspective; In British poetry, the kite’s recovery from near-extinction symbolizes conservation hope and rewilding; The kite’s scavenging habits appear in allegorical verse as commentary on survival ethics and renewal through decay; Its presence over farmland inspires poems on the intersection of agriculture and wildness; The kite’s cry—a thin whistle—adds acoustic detail to open-country landscapes in descriptive poetry.
Additional Notes
Kite: A raptor known for buoyant, graceful flight, kites (e.g., red kite) symbolize watchfulness, freedom, or ecological recovery (in the UK, once nearly extinct). Their scavenging habits add complexity—neither purely noble nor base. Useful in poems exploring surveillance, lightness, or redemption through conservation.
Also Known As
Red Kite Black Kite Mississippi Kite spinnaker
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