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 R

Rail

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 secretive marsh bird with laterally compressed body and elusive habits.

Detailed Definition
Rails symbolize hidden life, marginal existence, and the unseen in poetry. Their skulking through reeds and sudden calls evoke mystery and the limits of perception. Often heard but not seen, they represent the unknown within familiar landscapes. Poets use rails to explore themes of concealment, the fragility of wetland habitats, and the quiet persistence of creatures that thrive in the shadows, embodying the poetry of the overlooked and the in-between.
Example
Example in poetry:
In wetland poetry, the rail’s secretive movements through reeds symbolize the unseen life of marshes and the limits of human perception; Poets use the Virginia rail’s grunting calls to add acoustic mystery to dense, watery thickets; Its laterally compressed body appears in descriptive verse as an adaptation for slipping through narrow spaces; Ecopoets reference rails to advocate for reed-bed conservation and the protection of marginal habitats; The rail’s tendency to freeze or skulk rather than fly inspires metaphors for concealment and survival through stillness; In regional poetry, rails mark the hidden richness of overlooked ecosystems like urban wetlands.
Additional Notes
Rail: Secretive marsh birds (e.g., Virginia rail) known for skulking in reeds and distinctive calls (“kiddick”). Symbolize hiddenness, wetland mystery, and elusive presence. Their difficulty to observe makes them metaphors for the unseen or the barely audible—useful in poems about perception or marginal spaces.
Also Known As
Virginia Rail Sora Rail Water Rail Coot (colloquially though taxonomically distinct)
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