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



Plum

Flora
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 fruit tree with white or pink blossoms appearing in early spring and sweet or tart fruits.

Detailed Definition
Plum blossoms symbolize perseverance, beauty, purity, and renewal in poetry, especially in East Asian verse. Their early blooming, sometimes in snow, represents courage and the triumph of beauty over adversity. In Chinese and Japanese poetry, plum blossoms are highly esteemed symbols of resilience. The fruit's sweetness and Western cultivation history add associations with orchards and harvest. Poets use plum trees to explore themes of beauty enduring hardship, spring's first promises, and the contrast between delicate flowers and harsh conditions.
Example
Example in poetry:
Plum blossoms appearing before leaves symbolize purity, perseverance, and early beauty; In Chinese and Japanese poetry, plum blossoms represent endurance through winter hardship; The fruit's transformation from tart to sweet when ripe creates maturation metaphors; Wild plums in hedgerows provide imagery of untamed bounty and thorny protection; Plums in still-life poetry represent summer's purple abundance and fleeting ripeness; The fruit's ancient cultivation connects to poems about human-plant relationships across millennia
Additional Notes
Plum blossom often appears very early, sometimes before full spring warmth, which makes it a symbol of brave beauty and anticipation. The tree’s blossom-to-fruit progression supports poems about promise becoming nourishment, or about the transformation from delicate to substantial. Plums also carry cultural resonance in East Asian arts, where blossom signifies resilience and integrity. The fruit’s sweetness and occasional tartness allow emotional nuance, and the dark skin can be used for rich colour imagery in late-summer scenes.
Other Meanings of “Plum”
Also Known As
Prunus domestica Plum Tree purpled
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