Steamer Letter I

Grace Hazard Conkling

7 February 1878 to 15 November 1958 (~80)

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No more poems will be set to music

From 4 November 2026 I am not setting any more poems to music. Voting is closed. This poem will stay as text until the garden closes at midnight on 20 January 2028.

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Green buds expect her in the orchards now,
You will be free as any living thing.
When in the spires of waves the small bells ring
The wind's brief kiss should satisfy your mouth.
I'll try to love a trifle north by east,
And keep the weather for my heart at least,
Invariable while you are away.
Oh, you will be contented I dare say!
And meanwhile since I must not love you south
When April is a seagull following
The twisted lanes of foam, not caring how
To turn a purple furrow for the spring,
When your dark-coultered ship is the only plough
And are half smothered by the thrusting bow,
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Steamer Letter I

by Grace Hazard Conkling

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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

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