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

Shrine

World Religion
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 holy or sacred place dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, or similar figure of respect, often containing a relic.

Detailed Definition
A shrine is a focal point for devotion, pilgrimage, and prayer. It can be an elaborate structure or a simple roadside marker. In poetry, shrines symbolize localized holiness, the human impulse to mark encounters with the sacred, and the memory of the virtuous. They serve as destinations for spiritual journeys, both external and internal. A poem itself can act as a verbal shrine, built to honor a person, a moment of grace, or a divine presence, preserving it in language.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Hindu poetry, Shrine (mandir) houses deity: “Marigolds offered—Shrine where Krishna smiles”; In Shinto verse, Shrine (jinja) honors kami: “Torii gate—Shrine where forest spirits dwell”; In contemporary poetry, Shrine is memory: “Roadside cross—Shrine for teen lost too soon”; Poets use Shrine for intimacy: “Windowsill altar—Shrine with photo, candle, hope.”
Additional Notes
Shrines—from Lourdes to Ise Jingu—localize the sacred in specific places, often tied to miracles, relics, or natural features; they invite pilgrimage and personal prayer; poets depict shrines as thresholds where heaven touches earth, where individual longing meets communal memory in quiet acts of devotion.
Also Known As
Sanctuary Samadhi (in some South Asian contexts) Mazar altar Reliquary
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