The Plough

The constellation Ursa Major, the Bear. I saw it last night, from a moving car, its whitelit axes so clear in the ink-coloured sky that they almost joined one another up. It was tipped on its handle, the blade straight upright, which made me think: if that is ploughing the sky, then the soil of the sky is turned ninety-degrees through the terrestrial axis. Which made me think: we're at right angles to the stellar horizontal. We're out of kilter, says the Plough.