What grace given as redemption
can this grace be now? she wonders,
walking past his corner again
in the glassy white glare of 6 o’clock,
seeing what little is left
of what he gave his life to.

This was a man who worked the same job
for twenty-seven years, fixing machines
made by other men, machines meant to break
from wear, from neglect, from war.
A man who worked in a concrete box
on the corner of Patterson and Main
in a soiled, quarter-sleeved jumpsuit,
washing away the work each night
back home – chassis grease, used gear oil,
human sweat.

He was a man who lived in ways people
couldn’t see, a “good” man, the neighbors said,
who only charged what he thought his work
was worth. But there was more: this was a man
who lived in the grace of shadows, his wife liked to think
(though, really, who would understand that?).
A man who enjoyed the lonely pleasures of mist and rain,
but also raised a family. Who never lost interest
in his work or his children, even after his children
lost interest in him.

What grace given as redemption
can this grace be now? she wonders,
blinking at the bunker, now an open wound,
another man’s garage about to close for the day.

This was a man who worked alone, often
under the light of a 75-watt incandescent bulb,
pondering problems with the patience of a general.
A man who never lost interest because the world
never stopped giving him problems, and his work
never stopped showing him how to fix them.

He was a quiet man who as he grew older began to fade,
his skin dimming at dusk with the dirt that never came off.
And as they sat out back breathing in the evening
through birches and pines, his wife, who’d begun to fade
a little herself, would think about the elegance of shadows:
how they arrived so deftly as the air cooled, always knowing
when to come and go, carrying the sensuous perfumes
of ancient cities, alpine forests, exotic trading emporiums
filled with all the finer things; where passengers would step off
trains and breathe in the evening, just as they were doing,
watching the last shadows lengthen and deepen, then disappear.
Unlike people, never staying too long.

This was a man who could’ve shown the world
how to fix its problems. But no leaders
ever stopped at his garage. No one even tried
to tell his story, until the obituary, which she wrote,
calling him “a man who lived in the grace of shadows.”

Damn this little town, she thinks, walking home
down Patterson. Damn how it kept us, with its walled streets,
and predictable traffic that never went anywhere.
She makes a turn, and another, her anger briefly keeping pace
with an earlier version of herself; it fades.
She arrives at their house and fixes a drink, slides outside
into the cooling yard, her thoughts sharpening, like late light
on blades of grass. She waits – for the shadows to come closer,
stealthily joining them, separate but inseparable; waits
for the elegance of evening to begin, for this war to be over.
She waits – in a familiar silence that yearns to become sound.
To be heard.

– James Lilliefors

Author’s Note: Although ‘The Elegance of Shadows’ was written about a specific person, it’s also about the everyday saints who live quiet lives of grace and purpose, becoming shadows that blend with the mystery and beauty of the world and are forgotten.