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.

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 L

Line in the sand

Idiomatic Phrase
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

Line in the sand marks a clear boundary or limit beyond which one will not go; thematically, it signifies defiance, principle, or ultimatum, often appearing in conflicts where stakes, values, or territories are defined.

Detailed Definition
Line in the sand means a clear boundary, limit, or point beyond which one will not retreat or compromise. In poetry, the idiom can carry moral, political, emotional, or relational force. The sand image is important because such a line may seem firm yet vulnerable to wind, tide, or footsteps. A poet may use it to explore courage, defiance, territoriality, or the fragility of declared limits. It pairs well with images of shore, desert, border, conflict, and decision.
Example
Example in poetry:
A political poem might draw a line in the sand where conscience refuses to step back; In a love poem, the speaker's final refusal becomes a line in the sand; The phrase means a firm boundary or point beyond which one will not go; A poet can use it for moral clarity and defiance.
Additional Notes
A line in the sand is a clear boundary, warning, or point beyond which action will be taken. Unlike draw the line, this phrase often suggests confrontation and potential conflict. In poetry, it can be literalised through beaches, deserts, tides, erasure, and footprints. Students should notice its fragility: a line in sand can be crossed, blurred, or washed away, making it a powerful image for unstable limits.
Also Known As
limit
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