SEMIOTICS

On Signal Street
In Ojai
There is a boutique
Wine shop called
‘Point de Chene’.

Across the way
’El Roblar’
Ojai’s original hotel
Is being revived
As a Luxury Spa Resort.

There exists a Synergy
Of sorts. In French
Or in Colonial Spanish
Both names reference
Oaks.

This valley used to be Replete
With Oak Meadows
Providing nourishment
To its Indigenous People
For over 15,000 years.

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth
Century, Local White Farmers
Fattened their pigs on Acorns.
Then the Meadows were turned
Into Orange Groves

Forever destroying
The Valley floor where Oaks
Grasses, streams
Ponds, swamps and wildlife
Existed in a complex

Negentropic web.
Now mono-cropped with Citrus
‘Oaks’ remains only as
An Insipid Signifier
Of a Lost World.