The Test You Have Is Absolutely

The rishi tarred and feathered

began to like not needing a suit

became gratified with making stew

here was the ridiculously sweet thing

about him: having dismissed a vegetable

of extreme rarity in favor of endless dice

these were the rewards doled out

to privateers in Elizabethan England

on returning with the heads of the Spanish

and their onions in shiploads

which contributed to the birth of stew

which while a delicious bit of irony

was limited by territorial lines

and because it was assumed waste

was cast into an anachronistically dark

the room having gone dark too

for him the sensation was certainly not

unpleasant the gravy seems gamy to most

the sage sees his own in the southern stars

stirs them with his peeled polished branch

yet such is the methodology of the pot

despite the risk incurred by practicing

without a license to combine

the stick drawn down and snapped

so as to facilitate this double purpose

but the snake eyes mean he already is.