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 V

Vulture

Birds
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 scavenger bird symbolizing death, purification, and maternal care in some cultures.

Detailed Definition
Though often seen as ominous, vultures play a sacred role in Zoroastrian and Native American traditions as cleansers of the earth. In poetry, they represent necessary decay, rebirth from ruin, or the stark honesty of nature’s cycles. Poets use vultures to confront mortality without sentimentality, or to critique human waste and the ignored labor of renewal in ecological and social systems.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Zoroastrian-inspired poetry, vultures purify the earth by consuming the dead, symbolizing sacred recycling; Poets use vultures to confront mortality without sentimentality; In African verse, the vulture is a wise elder who sees truth in decay; Modern ecopoetry laments vulture decline as a sign of ecosystem collapse; Its soaring flight above carcasses becomes a metaphor for detached perspective on human folly.
Additional Notes
The vulture—often maligned—symbolizes necessary decay, purification, and maternal care (in some African and Andean traditions). In Zoroastrianism, it cleanses the dead. Modern ecopoetry laments its decline as an ecosystem warning. Related terms: “scavenger sanctity,” “recycler of death,” “keystone cleaner.” Challenge students to reframe “ugly” birds as sacred.
Also Known As
Turkey Vulture Griffon Vulture Cinereous Vulture Cathartes aura Aiah
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