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

Stoor

Dialect
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

Fine particles of dust or fluff; also used of a choking, dusty atmosphere.

Detailed Definition
"Stoor" describes the fine, floating particles of dust and fluff that are disturbed by movement or settle in undisturbed spaces, and it has a delicate, almost poetic quality that the grittier "stour" lacks. In verse it appears in descriptions of neglected spaces, harvesting scenes, and the domestic detail of dusty corners, and it belongs to the Scots tradition of precise physical observation. The word's soft sound suits its subject — this is not coarse grit but fine, almost invisible matter, the kind that floats in light and settles silently on everything.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Stoor" means dust, especially fine flying dust, or a commotion; A poet might write: "The stoor rose up from the threshing floor — / a golden cloud, then nothing more." for a harvest scene; "The horse's hooves raised stoor along the track — / a sign that someone was coming back." uses dust to signal arrival; "She watched the stoor of years settle slow — / the past becomes the ground below." uses the word metaphorically; "In the stoor and bustle of the town — / she almost laid her dreaming down." contrasts busyness and inner life; "The stoor of battle lingers still — / on every wind that clears the hill." applies the word to historical memory
Additional Notes
Stoor (also stour) is a fine example of a word that operates on both sensory and emotional levels simultaneously. The physical reality of stoor — that fine dust that hangs in air, irritates eyes and throat, and coats surfaces — becomes in verse a metaphor for the choking quality of grief, confusion, or conflict. "Up in a stoor" means thoroughly stirred up and confused. The word's visual quality (the suspended particles, the haze of fine matter) makes it excellent for atmospheric description. Students should note the related word "stour" (same meaning, slightly more archaic) and the connection to "disturb" in the idea of settled matter being thrown into the air and hanging there.
Also Known As
Dust Fine powder
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