prayer in flight

prayer in flight

Ruby Mary Gill is een in Zuid-Afrika geboren, in Australië woonachtige dichter en muzikant wiens ‘lyrische tovenarij’ haar de reputatie heeft bezorgd van een auteur die je niet mag missen. Haar werk over seks, queer-zijn, rouw, verkeersslachtoffers en vogels is veelvuldig gepubliceerd in de Saturday Paper, Harvard Advocate, Griffith Review, Verandah Journal, Unyoked Anthology en meer. Ruby’s debuut poëziebundel I’m not exaggerating when I say verscheen in december 2025 en was al uitverkocht voordat de lanceringsdag voorbij was. Ruby is tweemaal genomineerd voor de Australian Music Prize en stond onlangs op de shortlist voor haar tweede album ‘Some Kind Of Control’, dat wereldwijd bekendheid verwierf. De recensies weerspiegelen de woorden van Zan Rowe van double j: “excuse me while I scrape myself off the floor.” In haar vrije tijd is Ruby Birdlife Ambassadeur en zwerft ze door de bush om haar uitgebreide Excel-spreadsheet met vogelobservaties bij te werken.

prayer in flight

9 kilometres
out of kerala and
I signal to the others
that it is time to say grace

we are approaching the mudflats
and I would like to honour in advance the
prawn we have flown 3600 miles for. gerard from
a rugby throw’s back says he’s not in the mood for god

wit comes easier to him than prayer, and I say that’s fine
remembering the time his wife got so weak that she missed
her flight, and how when we got back, we laid our worms on her
grave. she had once asked him if he’d still love her if she was a worm

that night, we stood in a cloud

to my right, mimi offers up her usual hymn, just thank you in dutch, over
and over, calling on angels in her dog squeaker voice. I have never
quite gotten used to it, though we repeat this journey every year

this is not quite what I was going for as offering, but it will do
this year, flying was more expensive, and risky, what with
another war, and so I’ve started taking what I can get

below I see the curve of the coastline sharp
line thicker than last time. I like to begin
my code switch a little before we land
and so I start singing marivillin
gopurangal in a blunt hum
it is summer in our beth
lehem, once again
lucky us to be

alive to
see it