Witnessing and the Body

Resurrection   Slender neck and sweat-dampened forehead, tasting tongue and the clash of teeth, lungs filled with smoke from the late-burning lamp.   The scratch of pen on parchment, lines curving around bodies as they sink into the blood-soaked earth.    Inside out we feel it pulsing in our neck, hear it in our cotton-stuffed ears, the things we can no longer remember.    The sound of the shutter, the…

The Temporality of Witnessing

When the three youths are saved from the flames in the Old English verse-form of the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar can hardly believe his eyes. At the sight of this miracle, Nebuchadnezzar declares, “Now I truly see four people there – I do not deceive myself at all” (lines 412-413). At this moment of witnessing, Nebuchadnezzar appears to change his ways. He sees the youths’ bonds incinerated, their clothing intact,…