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 Y

yardstick

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 yardstick is a straight measuring rod one yard long, marked in units of length.

Detailed Definition
Traditionally made of wood or metal, a yardstick measures three feet and is used in shops, classrooms, tailoring, building, and household tasks. In poetry it may appear as an ordinary object of practical measurement or as a metaphor for standards and comparison. To judge life by a yardstick is to reduce complex value to a fixed scale, an idea poets may affirm or question. Its straightness suggests order and fairness, while its limits expose the inadequacy of measuring love, grief, beauty, or human worth.
Example
Example in poetry:
The teacher laid the yardstick across the desk and measured the paper; A yardstick may symbolise an external standard used to judge people or achievements; Poets may question whether love, grief, or beauty can be measured by any fixed scale; Its straight, limited length contrasts with experiences that resist calculation.
Additional Notes
A yardstick is literally a measuring rod three feet long, but in figurative language it means a standard by which something is judged. Poetry may challenge the assumption that human value, beauty, grief, love, or achievement can be reduced to fixed units. Its straightness and limited length contrast with experiences that are irregular or immeasurable. Related terms include ruler, measure, scale, standard, comparison, judgement, length, proportion, limitation, fairness, value, education, conformity, and the inadequacy of objective measurement for subjective life.
Also Known As
yard rule yard measure measuring stick
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