Yield

He was summer burned, he was winter blown — Jimmy Webb

The crops have been rotated, and next year
We’ll see alfalfa in the eastern field,
Where unexpected aliens were sealed
Beneath the hops. We used them for the beer,
But couldn’t grow good barley. You may sneer,
And you might claim our talent was revealed
To be absent, but a pretty decent yield
Came out of this squat northern pasture here.

The land is redolent of what was planted,
All that we hid under the open ground.
The fertilizer seems to be unsound,
But when the newly dark brew was decanted
It looked all right. The sunlight, sharply slanted,
Shone through the glass, appropriately browned.