Why We Can’t See in the Dark

Once our eyes were wide as owl-eyes, sharp as any
prowling fowl-eyes,
seeing clean through pitch and shadow, no torch
needed, no more, no more.
Elders say we walked unblinded, moved through
midnight well-reminded
of each root and stone and river, sure of foot on any
shore,
never groping, never guessing, walking dark like it
was floor,
back before, back before.

There was a hunter, Osun's son, who envied what the
owl had won,
envied how she saw the field mouse twenty paces
from her door
while he, for all his human seeing, still went hungry
some evenings,
still lost deer to blacker thickets no torch-flame could
explore.
So he climbed the tallest hemlock, climbed to where
the owl-nest bore
two gold eyes, and nothing more.

"Give your sight," he told the owl, "give me what
makes darkness foul
to your enemies and easy hunting-ground for you to
soar."
The owl said nothing, only blinked, her old eyes level,
unconvinced,
and told him sight was never given, sight was traded,
sight had cost,
and the cost was something no man living had ever
paid before,
paid before, paid before.

He didn't ask what cost she meant. He took her eyes.
The old owl bent,
gave a cry that split the hemlock, gave a cry that
shook the shore,
and something climbed into his skull, something vast
and something dull,
a seeing wide as any midnight, deep as any ocean
floor.
He climbed down blazing, climbed down burning,
saw the dark as bright as morning,
saw it all, and wanted more.

He hunted every night that followed, every hollow,
every shadow,
took what the dark had always sheltered, took it
faster than before,
took the fox out of her denning, took the fawn before
its weaning,
took until the forest emptied, took till nothing crept
or wore
fur or feather through the thicket, took the dark
down to its core,
its core, its bare core.

The owl watched this from wherever owls go blind
and go forever,
watched the man burn through the midnight like a
torch nobody bore,
and she called then to the others, called to sisters and
to brothers,
called the moon down close and told her what her
stolen eyes now saw,
and the moon, who'd lent her silver only sparing,
only wary,
pulled her light back through the door.

That's the night the seeing left us, that's the night the
dark bereft us,
took back what the owl had given, took it clean
forevermore.
Now we stumble, now we falter, now we need the
torch, the altar-
fire, the lamp, the small weak candle, need them just
to find a door,
and the elders say it's payment, say it's owed and
paid forever
for the hunger that one man bore,
one man bore, and nothing more.

Writer’s Bio

Steffanie Edwins is a Swedish-based poet and writer, whose work includes themes of nature, identity, mortality, lore, and history. She writes in Swedish, English, Ibo, and Spanish, and her work has been published in six literary magazines.

When not writing, she can be found at ice skating rinks, the closest library, or simply hanging out with her rabbit, Oliver.