> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lorelorn.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Why We Can’t See in the Dark
- URL: https://www.lorelorn.com/why-we-cant-see-in-the-dark/
- Published: 2026-08-01T21:45:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-30T21:54:09.000Z
- Author: The Commonplace
- Tags: Poetry, Steffanie Edwins, NEW MOUTHS, #contributor

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.