prayer in flight

prayer in flight

Ruby Mary Gill is a South Africa-born, Australia-based poet and musician whose “lyrical wizardry” has earned her the reputation of unmissable. Her writing on sex, queerness, grief, roadkill and birds has been published widely in the Saturday Paper, Harvard Advocate, Griffith Review, Verandah Journal, Unyoked Anthology and more. Ruby’s debut poetry book ‘I’m not exaggerating when I say’ was released in Dec 2025, selling out its first print run before launch day was over. Ruby is also a two-time nominee for the Australian Music Prize, and was recently shortlisted as a top 3 artist for her ARIA-charting, globally renowned sophomore record ‘Some Kind Of Control.’ Consistent reviews echo double j’s Zan Rowe: “excuse me while I scrape myself off the floor.” In her spare time, Ruby is a Birdlife Ambassador, wandering around the bush, updating her bird-watching excel spreadsheet. It is extensive.

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