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

seal

Fauna
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 seal is a semi-aquatic marine mammal with a streamlined body and flippers, known for its playful water antics and mournful barking, symbolizing transformation and the boundary between land and sea.

Detailed Definition
In Celtic and Norse folklore, seals are shape-shifters, often shedding their skins to walk on land as humans, making them powerful poetic figures for dual identity, longing, and the pull of two worlds. Their large, dark eyes and vocal cries evoke a haunting, almost human sentiment. Poets use seals to explore themes of exile, the magnetic call of the ocean, and the sorrow of beings caught between elements, as well as the grace of fluid movement and the warmth of communal basking on rocky shores.
Example
Example in poetry:
Gillian Clarke's "Seal" depicts a mother and baby seal.; A poet might write, "The seals as they cavort, tend to scan".; The seal can symbolize transformation and the boundary between land and sea.; Its playful nature represents joy.; The animal's role in folklore is noted.
Additional Notes
The seal occupies a liminal space in poetry, moving between land and sea with a fluid grace that makes it a symbol for transformation, duality, and the magnetic pull of two worlds. In Celtic and Norse folklore, seals are shape-shifters, shedding their skins to walk on land as humans, creating powerful figures for longing, exile, and the loss of identity. The seal's large, dark eyes and mournful barking evoke a haunting, almost human sentiment. Poets often use the seal to explore themes of the sea's allure, the tragedy of the selkie who cannot return home, and the beauty of creatures that thrive in the cold, gray waters. When writing, emphasize the seal's liminal status and its role in folklore.
Also Known As
Mudra caulk Sigil
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