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 T

Tarsus

Historical Location
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

An ancient city in Cilicia (southern Turkey), birthplace of the Apostle Paul and a center of Hellenistic learning

Detailed Definition
Tarsus was a major intellectual and commercial hub, blending Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern cultures. As Paul’s birthplace, it bridges classical and Christian traditions. In poetry, Tarsus may symbolize the synthesis of faith and reason, the cosmopolitan roots of early Christianity, or the tension between worldly wisdom and spiritual revelation—often appearing in religious or philosophical verse as a site of transformation.
Example
Example in poetry:
In the Acts of the Apostles, Tarsus is Paul’s birthplace, later celebrated in Christian devotional verse; Roman poets note Tarsus as a center of Stoic learning and Cilician pride; Byzantine hymnody references Tarsus as a cradle of apostolic mission; Romantic biblical poetry evokes Tarsus to explore dual identity (Jew and Roman); Contemporary Turkish poets reclaim Tarsus as a multicultural crossroads.
Additional Notes
Tarsus, in Cilicia (southern Turkey), was a major Hellenistic city and birthplace of the Apostle Paul, who described himself as “a Jew of Tarsus” (Acts 21:39). Known for its schools of philosophy and rhetoric, Tarsus bridged Greek, Jewish, and Roman worlds. In Christian poetry, it symbolizes the fusion of faith and reason, diasporic identity, and the urban context of early Christianity—key for understanding how place shapes theological discourse.
Also Known As
Cilician capital Paul birthplace Stoic center
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