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

sickle

Tools
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 sickle is a short-handled harvesting tool with a curved blade used to cut grain, grass, or other vegetation.

Detailed Definition
The sickle gathers stems into its inward curve and slices them with a close hand motion. It is one of the oldest agricultural tools and carries associations with harvest, moon shapes, peasant labour, fertility, and political symbolism. In poetry it may represent abundance and communal work, but also mortality, since ripe life is cut at its appointed season. Its compact crescent form enables comparisons with the moon, claws, or smiles, while reaping becomes a metaphor for time, judgement, and inevitable completion.
Example
Example in poetry:
The farmer drew the sickle through the ripe barley and gathered the stems; A sickle may symbolise harvest, mortality, and the completion of a natural cycle; Its crescent blade is often compared to the moon; In political poetry, the sickle can also represent agricultural labour and collective identity.
Additional Notes
The sickle is held in one hand and draws gathered stems into its inward-curving blade. Its ancient use in harvesting gives it associations with grain, fertility, peasant labour, and seasonal completion. The crescent form invites comparison with the moon and links the tool visually with cycles. It may also carry political or mythic symbolism. Related terms include scythe, reaping, harvest, grain, crescent, moon, farmer, labour, mortality, abundance, revolution, judgement, time, and the cutting down of life at maturity.
Other Meanings of “sickle”
Also Known As
reaping hook harvest hook reap hook
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