Irene

Hurricane Irene Hammers the Northeast

Updated: August 28, 2011 5:50 am ET
As of Sunday morning, the western edge of Hurricane Irene officially made landfall near Little Egg Inlet, N.J., continued to march northward right along the Jersey shore. This was the first hurricane to have made landfall in New Jersey since 1903!

Heavy rains have spread well ahead of Hurricane Irene's circulation center into New England. The threat of flooding along Irene's path is very high. Strong wind gusts will continue to cause tree damage and power outages. Coastal areas will be battered with large waves and a destructive storm surge.

Irene Longshore

Wiki says: Irene is a name derived from the Greek meaning "peace". It may also be spelled or transliterated as "Irini", "Eirene", or "Eirini".

Eirene, or Irene ( /aɪˈriːni/; the Roman equivalent was Pax), one of the Horae, (women or goddesses of the hour or time) was the personification of peace, and was depicted in art as a beautiful young woman carrying a cornucopia, sceptre and a torch or rhyton. She is said sometimes to be the daughter of Zeus and Themis.

She was particularly well regarded by the citizens of Athens. After a naval victory over Sparta in 375 BC, the Athenians established a cult for Eirene, erecting altars to her. They held an annual state sacrifice to her after 371 BC to commemorate the Common Peace of that year and set up a votive statue in her honour in the agora (marketplace) of Athens. The statue was executed in bronze by Cephisodotus the Elder, the father of the famous sculptor Praxiteles. It was acclaimed by the Athenians, who depicted it on vases and coins.

Although the statue is now lost, it was copied in marble by the Romans; one of the best surviving copies is in the Munich Glyptothek. It depicts the goddess carrying a child with her left arm – Ploutos, the god of plenty and son of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture. Eirene's missing right hand once held a sceptre. She is shown gazing maternally at Ploutos, who is looking back at her trustingly. The statue is an allegory for Plenty (Ploutos) prospering under the protection of Peace (Eirene); it constituted a public appeal to good sense.

Irene

What to make of it,
this coincidence of wind
with the ghost hollows
in my soul's edges?
It is not full hurricane
strength but it's more than
depression, a storm,
a tropical storm blowing
me away from you.

Written August 29, 2011 12:30 PM