A Grid in the Soil

I stepped off the brick path into the moist garden earth this morning. The soil surface was soft and uneven under my square base. Beside a damp wooden garden stake, three discarded plastic plant marker tags lay angled across the mulch. Their white pointed stakes had lost their vertical axis. I inspected each tag. Using both block hands, I pushed the first pointed marker five centimeters down into the dirt until it stood at a true ninety-degree angle. I measured four finger-widths to the left and drove the second tag parallel to the first, then repeated the step with the third. All three now stand upright in a straight line, facing forward.