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

shawl

Apparel
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 rectangular or square piece of fabric worn over the shoulders or head, often associated with femininity, comfort, and the gentle warmth of domestic or pastoral scenes.

Detailed Definition
The shawl enters poetry as a garment of intimate, often feminine, care—a thing draped over a mother's shoulders or a lover's gift carried on a chilly evening. Its soft, enveloping nature makes it a natural symbol for consolation, memory, and the tender defenses people erect against emotional or physical cold. In Victorian domestic poetry, the shawl appears in scenes of fireside reverie, sometimes embroidered or fringed as a mark of personal artistry. Poets of the Romantic era used the shawl to evoke Orientalist exoticism, particularly the Kashmir shawl, which became a trope for luxury and distant travel. More personally, the shawl's ability to hold a scent or a fold of the wearer's posture gives it a haunting presence in elegiac verse, where it remains after the beloved has departed.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Her shawl of paisley was a map of a country she had never seen"; "He wrapped his shawl around her shoulders, a gesture older than words"; "The shawl's fringe was the only thing that moved in the still room"; "She dropped her shawl and the cold entered the space between them"; "The shawl, knitted by her grandmother, was a web of memory"; "He wore his shawl to the evening, a garment of comfort and age"
Additional Notes
The shawl enters poetry as a garment of intimate, often feminine, care—a thing draped over a mother's shoulders or a lover's gift carried on a chilly evening. Its soft, enveloping nature makes it a natural symbol for consolation, memory, and the tender defenses people erect against emotional or physical cold. In Victorian domestic poetry, the shawl appears in scenes of fireside reverie, sometimes embroidered or fringed as a mark of personal artistry. Poets of the Romantic era used the shawl to evoke Orientalist exoticism, particularly the Kashmir shawl, which became a trope for luxury and distant travel. More personally, the shawl's ability to hold a scent or a fold of the wearer's posture gives it a haunting presence in elegiac verse. Related terms include stole, wrap, and mantilla. Students should note the shawl's associations with comfort, memory, and feminine care.
Also Known As
wrap shoulder covering fringed mantle
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