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



Rosalia

Historical Festival
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

Roman and Greek festival of roses honoring the dead, with floral offerings and commemorative meals

Detailed Definition
Rosalia involved placing roses on tombs during spring, symbolizing the brevity of life and beauty of remembrance. In poetry, it appears in epitaphs and elegies. Poets use it to explore themes of mortality, love’s persistence beyond death, and the fragility of beauty—making it a symbol of tender commemoration and the hope that memory, like flowers, can briefly defy decay.
Example
Example in poetry:
Roman sources note Rosalia with rose offerings to the dead and gods; Poets use Rosalia to explore floral memorial, beauty, and ephemeral life; In modern verse, Rosalia symbolizes gentle remembrance and spring death; The festival appears in May–June poetry as rose-bloom tribute; Poets contrast Rosalia’s sweetness with stark mourning; Eco-poets reference Rosalia as garden-based commemoration.
Additional Notes
Rosalia (May–June) was a Roman festival of roses for the dead, decorating tombs; later adopted by early Christians; in poetry, roses symbolize beauty, transience, and memorial—ideal for elegiac, floral, or syncretic verse exploring how pagan rites of remembrance were transformed into Christian practices of eternal hope.
Also Known As
Rosalia Festival Festival of Roses
Skip to main content