I have the great pleasure to announce that I was recently married.

  Annika and I are going to Guatemala for our honeymoon. We’ll go back to the place where I first went several years ago, high up in the mountains by a lake called Lago Atitlán.

  I went there to study Spanish originally. I am a Spanish teacher by profession but was always emergency credentialed at the beginning of each school year for I didn’t study Spanish in college. I grew up learning Spanish in my neighborhood in San Diego, though I didn’t speak it in my home. Anyway, when President Bush and Senator Kennedy, in their infinite wisdom, legislated No Child Left Behind, it required teachers such as myself to obtain the proper credentials in each subject. Teaching Spanish successfully for fifteen years didn’t qualify me and I was informed in no uncertain terms that it was a comply or lose job situation, no waivers possible. And no, there would be no financial help from the district in obtaining the credentials.

  I’m autodidactic enough to prepare myself but I wanted to just get away from everything for a couple of weeks and immerse myself in the sights and sounds and scents of the language. Researching schools abroad on the net, I discovered it was the same amount of cash to study in Ensenada, México as it was to fly to Guatemala. San Pedro La Laguna has the reputation of being the cheapest place in Latin America to study Spanish so there I went.

  It was a wonderful experience. And in the course of the next three weeks, all my blog entries will be about our trip to Guatemala. But I’ll leave you with a poem that I wrote for Annika to try and describe what it was like to go there the first time.

Lago Atitlán

for that, dear
       you have to journey far

the path leads where
the binding sun
grows higher every footstep
       in the sky

bleached bones gracing sand
ancient jagged peaks
crushed to life
clawed bare at the tips
by watery talons
that rake like bloody
serpentine runnels
crying all the way
       to the sea

the path leads where
the tongues of men
are always changing
       sounds for achievements

rapid full valued syllables
musical with laughter
spluttering in rage
semantics and syntax
from sunrise and sunset
borne lovingly across two seas
stone ground and applauded into
one nourishing discus
drumming the ear joyfully
       tripping the mind temporarily

the path leads where
the skins of men
are experienced
       in the sun

rooted earth tones
feet that never leave
the ground of their being
hearts of soil glowing life
       with soul true colors

the path leads where
the trees erupt from their mother
in infinite restless tangles
       of transforming green

buds of sun stolen hues
snakes of precious gems
cats of furnace flame and black hole
frogs of hallucinogenic taste
wings of sudden rampage
       and sweetness cawing

the path leads where
massive stones were hammered high
as men could sacrifice
       chip by chip

fabulous star sized numbers
sounds matched with monsters
dictatorship of horrorstriken esoterica
sun sustained by human heartblood
warring gods of light and dark
redhanded priests feeding subjects
to a galactic crocodile
as skulls bounced in a ballcourt
like venus east and west
and the winning captains
       were beheaded by a cannibal bat

the path ends
up in the mountains
on the shore of a sweetwater sea
fed by cracks in the earth
       and ruled by volcanoes

utterly fathomless mystery
land of the dead far below the waves
that takes a lifetime to visit
and when you return
if you return
all you know will be dead and gone

boats crisscrossing village to village
of men who sprouted from the earth
like stalks of beheaded corn
who know history
both conquering and conquered
       but call it mythology

surface calm and bright young sunny mornings
wind whipped and choppy come anguished dusk
the sacrificial sun revealing the blood hidden
in the clouds tapering downhill toward the coast
between two volcanoes

and just before the stars come out
fat rain drops fall with lazy inevitability
rolling down your cheeks as the tears
you could not quite muster yourself
and the lightning
thick as your finger
across the sweetwater sea
cracks plumb with the earth
volcano peak to volcano peak
like first glances between distant deities
with four slow breathless heartbeats
till the joyous thunder fills your ears

and now you know, dear
       now you know

  This morning I was a guest on Tom Madison’s Poetry Show on Blog Talk Radio and read Lago Atitlán and several excerpts of my book Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero . I also read A Glass Of Moon and discussed the ups and downs of self-publishing. Tom is a fine poet broadcasting out of the great state of Mississippi, land of the Delta Blues and famous American author William Faulkner. Click on the icon below to give a listen to his show.

  My next blog will discuss travel documents and precautions that you can take that will make your journey overseas much less stressful. Until then… all the best!

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero