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

Spätlese

Viniculture
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

Spätlese is a German wine classification meaning late harvest, indicating ripe, often sweeter grapes.

Detailed Definition
Spätlese evokes lateness, ripeness, and German precision in verse. It suggests that delay brings reward, that patience yields sweetness. Poets use it to symbolize maturity, the beauty of waiting, or the specific quality of autumn. It reflects the value of timing, the distinction of categories, and the cultural appreciation for measured excellence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Spätlese meant late-picked, a German term the poet called "the harvest's second act"; He wrote of Spätlese as a Riesling with more ripeness, a wine of golden apples and slate-honey; In her season poem, Spätlese was the autumn's reward, a richer, sweeter level above Kabinett; The poet compared Spätlese to the middle stanza of a ode—more developed than the opening, yet before the final climax; She called it the late selection, a category that promises more body and a lingering finish
Additional Notes
Spätlese is the second-highest category in the German Prädikat classification system, meaning "late harvest" and indicating wines made from grapes that have been left on the vine to reach greater ripeness (starting at 76 degrees Öchsle), resulting in wines with higher sugar content, greater intensity, and often a touch of sweetness, though many are now made in a dry style; this category is a classic expression of Riesling, and it can produce wines of exceptional depth, acidity, and aging potential; in poetry, Spätlese represents the value of delay, the insight that comes from waiting until the perfect moment, and the richness that arises from patience, making it a fitting metaphor for a poet who refines their work over time and does not rush to publish, allowing the poem to develop its full potential.
Also Known As
late picked German harvest ripened selection
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