Chaos Theory
Jim McGarrah 
​
My german shepherd saved a chipmunk’s life.

She didn’t mean to.

Like a drunk driver whose car stalls
or a serial killer whose gun misfires,
it happened without altruistic intent.

The two faced off between park trail and mulberry bush
in a verdant neighborhood of vines and roots.

A tail wag, a stuttered step, the race began.
At the last instant my pet lost as her nemesis fled
beneath the earth into the tunnel of a burrowed home

​while above them both an angry hawk scolded the dog
for scaring off lunch. How difficult it must have been

​to realize the bigger picture from ground level
and how impossible for those involved to understand
the idea of order as an illusion of natural impulse.