Hunger Games and Poetry

"Hope
is a butterfly
landing on your arm,
gracing you with its presence
for no more than mere seconds,
then flying up into the sky
before you can grasp it
in your hand,
once again out of reach."

--excerpt from my poem "Ode to Hope", October 2003

I have seen a butterfly in various movies and often think of my own line in this poem. However, as I watched The Hunger Games this last March, April, August, and September (yes, I have seen it four times), I pictured in my head each time the same stanza. In the movie, Katniss has just run off into the woods after escaping the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, and she sits down on this dead log. A butterfly, a brilliant blue in color, has landed nearby, and she reaches out and lets it walk on her hand. Then it flies away.

Whenever I see that, I think about my own vision of hope and how it flies away. The whole scene is good (thanks in most part to Jennifer Lawrence), but when I see it, I think of my poem and imagine if Katniss feels like she, even for a moment, has a feeling of hope,then the rest of us have one, too.