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 S

scarecrow

Farming
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 scarecrow is a human-shaped figure placed in a field to frighten birds away from crops.

Detailed Definition
A scarecrow is made from old clothing, straw, wood, or other materials and stands as a substitute human presence among growing crops. Its practical purpose is simple, but its lonely posture and weathered appearance have made it a rich poetic figure. It can symbolise emptiness, neglect, comic ineffectiveness, guardianship, or a person reduced to mere outward form. Because it resembles a body without life, the scarecrow also lends itself to Gothic, autumnal, and meditative poems about identity, exposure, and mortality.
Example
Example in poetry:
A scarecrow standing alone can symbolise isolation, emptiness, or neglected duty; Birds resting on a scarecrow may make it a comic image of failed authority; Its human shape without human life can introduce Gothic or uncanny associations; A weather-beaten scarecrow may represent ageing, exposure, and the gradual loss of identity.
Additional Notes
A scarecrow imitates the human figure in order to deter birds from eating newly sown seed or ripening crops. Its failure is common in poetry, where birds may perch upon it, turning authority into comedy. Because it resembles an empty or lifeless person, it can also symbolise loneliness, exposure, neglected duty, or uncertain identity. Related terms include field, crow, rag, straw, crop, guardian, effigy, harvest, and bird damage.
Also Known As
bird scarer crow scarer tattie-bogle gallybagger
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