The Poet’s Anthem
I am a poem
Written line by line
One stanza at a time
My life, a message
Penned on a page of time
Metered out in verse and rhyme
Puzzle with the metaphor of me
Compare your life and mine
Seek for its message and its sign
If I am the message
What will my missive be
On the mortal page of me?
When the final line is read
Let them hear and see
The Author of this poem...
...Who wrote to you through me
Whisper in the Wind
I didn't feel you there
'til you caressed my hair
You stirred up on the breeze
these dry and crumpled leaves
Whisked them up in play
And lofted them away
I didn't see your form
til you purged the sky of storm
...a movement in the wind
that caused the dark to end
And after you breezed past
You left your print upon the grass
I didn't hear Your voice
above my heart's own noise
'til your lamenting moan
matched up to my own,
...in the rattle of my pane
Until the morning came
And then I knew You'd been
that whisper in the wind
To Rise on Wings Divine
I Tangled on my many legs
You lofted up on wings
Floating on the breeze
I munched on the withered weeds
You danced above from
blossom to blossom
I gazed into the azure sky
As you just fluttered by
Then I realized why
And I climbed up on a branch
And waited there...
In some way, to die...
...so I could learn to fly
To be like you and give all mine
To rise on wings of Love Divine
Let Me Just Belong
The fashions of this world
swept me swift across
the dusty floor of time,
then out the window hurled
fragments of my life—
like shattered glass and wine.
Where has it gone—
that lovely pedestal
they placed my youth upon?
Like the echo of a song,
just a fleeting memory—
that’s the vapor I will be.
I’d rather simply be
a nail fastened in the wall
of something greater than just me,
than shine for all to see
until the sweeper comes
to clear the house of me.
Not to be admired,
nor merely be desired—
please, let me just belong.
“Oh, Eve, Why Did You Eat It?”
I slipped into Regina’s tiny, single-wide mobile home. The solid maple floorboards creaked under my feet. It was a funny little place—ancient but lovingly redone. The incongruities made it charming. I wasn’t sure how old it was, but I guessed it had been born about the same year I was.
Regina and Nathan were expecting their second child. They’d scraped together what they could to buy this trailer and had turned it into a little haven—a patchwork of love, elbow grease, and hand-me-downs.
They’d painted the dark cabinets white to brighten the kitchen and torn the gaudy mirrors off the walls. Best of all, they’d salvaged hardwood planks from a condemned building and laid them through the house as flooring. Still, some mobile home quirks lingered. The gold doorknobs liked to fall off mid-turn, and the flimsy doors bowed inward if you bumped them with anything firmer than a pillow. But they’d made it theirs, and it worked.
Outside, my skirt and coat had whipped into the grasp of a bitter January wind as I made the dash from the car to their door. But as I stepped into the warmth of their home, the lamplight wrapped around me like a quilt.
“Welcome!” Nathan called, smiling from his perch beside Regina.
She sat swaddled in an enormous shawl, rocking steadily in a handmade mesquite chair, riding the waves of her contractions. Her smooth brow puckered, and she wagged a stubby finger at her belly.
“Bad Baby!” she scolded, pulling her lips into an exaggerated frown.
I laughed, slipping my bag off my shoulder and kneeling beside her. “What’s he doing now?”
“Making his mommy miserable,” she huffed.
Her long strawberry-blonde hair swung behind her like golden silk. Twisting it up in one hand, she pinned it behind her head just as the next wave hit. The rocker moved in rhythm with her breath—shallow pants, chin tucked, side to side. I slipped the fetoscope bell to her belly and jotted down the baby’s heart tones and her vitals.
Regina had her own way of coping with labor. Between breaths came a steady stream of whispered prayers and musings.
“Thank You, Jesus, for this pain. I know You’re using it to humble me . . . but Lord, You know I don’t have much pain tolerance.”
She paused, taking a deep cleansing breath, then added, “Amanda, did you know my grandmother was born in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere? God bless my great-grandmother. Well, I guess she doesn’t need me to bless her—she’s already in heaven.”
Across the room, Angie—my assistant—turned red with suppressed laughter. Her lips formed a tight line as her shoulders shook.
Nathan calmly patted Regina’s shoulder and took another bite of his sandwich.
“Did you get your broccoli covered last night?” he asked. “They’re saying it’ll freeze tonight—cold enough to kill even broccoli. My brother and I were out there wrestling tarps in the wind. I think I got frostbite. Texans are nuts. Where I’m from, when frost comes, you just give up on the garden.”
Nathan was from Canada, and we southerners gave him endless grief—his food, his tea, his accent. But he gave as good as he got.
I remembered the first time I met him as a teenager. I was just finishing milking the cows with Hannah. We’d heard that some 18-year-old guy from Montreal had come to apprentice on the farm. These days, people come from all over to learn our crafts and agriculture, but back then it was new and exciting.
“Want to go meet him?” Hannah asked, eyes twinkling. “He’s staying at Kurt’s. I’m dying to see what he’s like.”
I shrugged and followed under the thin pretense that we needed to talk to Kurt about something. I almost turned back three times, but Hannah reminded me that her parents said we should make him feel welcome.
We knocked, and instead of Kurt, the new apprentice answered.
Of course, Hannah drifted three yards back, leaving me standing there.
I stuck out my hand. “Welcome. I’m Amanda. Is Kurt home?”
He was friendly, gracious. His cheeks were windburned, and I thought, Maybe he’s used to working outside. However, the moment I shook his hand, I knew otherwise. His palms were as soft as warm butter. It was strange. All of us who grew up on farms had hands like leather.
It was awkward—Hannah silent, Kurt gone—but we all became fast friends soon enough.
In a few months, Nathan had slipped into farm life as if he’d been born to it.
One spring morning, I drove my dad’s van up the hill from the river bottom. A soft rain fell, greying the road. As I passed the Stein’s driveway, their chickens—as always—rushed out to greet me. I was terrified I’d hit one.
This time, I heard a plaintive squawk.
I slammed the van into park and leapt out. Rain crept down my collar as I peered under the chassis. The chickens seemed fine—scratching on the far side of the road—but I could still hear it periodically: a faint, muffled squawk. Was it in the engine compartment?
Suddenly, Nathan was beside me. I hadn’t even heard his truck.
“Everything okay?”
“I think I hit a chicken! One of the Stein’s!” I was almost in tears, pushing my soaking hair back from my face.
“Why do you think you hit one?”
“I heard it—it’s still squawking. Listen!”
He looked around, then pulled his hand from his pocket and pointed calmly at my windshield wipers.
“Is that what you’re hearing?” I glanced at where he pointed. The wiper blade screeched across the glass in a mocking wave—errrr, errr . . .
“Oh!” I lunged back into the van, just as the wipers squeaked again.
That squawk followed me all the way up the hill. And I could still see Nathan in my rearview mirror standing in the road.
Nine months after Dan and I married, Nathan married Regina. I was thrilled. They were the kind of couple you couldn’t help but love—kind, humble, full of fun. They made friendship look easy, something I admired. We sang often and took trips together to visit family up north. They were in the same season of life—building homes, raising little ones, learning the rhythm of marriage and community.
Regina and I went way back. Our fathers had served in the military together, and hers had stood in my parents’ wedding.
Now, watching her rock and banter her way through labor, I found myself drifting back to another memory—more recent—one that still sat tenderly in my heart.
It had been a hard season. Regina had suffered multiple miscarriages while I had already birthed one baby and was expecting my second. We’d thought we might carry our first children together. But my births had come and gone, and she was left with only grief.
When I became pregnant again, Regina announced she was, too—due just weeks after me. Her joy was undimmed by past sorrow. But I couldn’t shake my worry.
One afternoon, I stopped by JC Penny to buy a baby shower gift for a friend. As I flipped through the racks, I spotted Regina nearby, doing the same. She looked up, and my heart sank.
Her face was wet with tears.
“Hey, Regina,” I called softly. “Are you shopping for . . .”
She didn’t answer. Her lip trembled. Her grey eyes were wide and wet.
Lifting Helen onto my hip, I walked over.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m bleeding again . . .” she whispered, then burst into tears.
I stood there, helpless, in the baby aisle, murmuring, “I’m so sorry.” I patted her shoulder as gently as I could.
Later that day, while Helen napped and the house was still, something stirred in me. A deep, trembling urgency to pray.
I knelt beside the bed and began—slow at first, not sure what to say. But the longer I stayed there, the more the words came. I prayed for her body. For the baby. Against bleeding. I prayed as if I could hold the baby in place with my words.
And suddenly, something broke open. I felt it. I stood up and lifted my hands, yielding to the prayers pouring out of me. The prayers became focused, clear, anointed. Like I had stepped through a hidden door and found myself on a mountain ridge, seeing clearly.
She’s going to keep this baby, I thought. It’s going to be a boy.
I jumped up and down, weeping and laughing, thanking God.
Then came the test: Call Regina and tell her.
Lord, I hesitated, I don’t want to give her false hope.
But the peace in my spirit was too real to ignore. I picked up the phone.
And months later, I held her newborn son in my arms, helping her through recovery. In some small way, I felt like that boy was mine, too.
Now, here we were again . . .
The rocker clicked faster on the maple floor as Regina’s contractions came closer. Suddenly, she paused mid-puff and pointed across the room.
“I think I hear a mouse!”
We all strained to listen.
“Over there,” she insisted.
We never did find the mouse. But Nathan grinned.
“Regina has a special terror of mice,” he said. “One day I came home and there was some kind of sewing party going on—her sisters, friends, aunts. I hear screaming from the yard.”
He waited for her to ride out a contraction.
“Anyway,” Nathan resumed, “when I walked in the door, Regina’s standing on the counter, another young lady is on a chair, and another on the couch. ‘Nathan!’ she screamed, ‘we’ve got a mouse in the house!’ You see, these ladies had caught that mouse in the very act of . . .” Nathan threw out his hands, eyes widening in puzzlement, “Of being a . . . mouse . . . ?”
He pantomimed the scene—brooms, shrieks, women leaping from furniture. He then told them they just needed to set a trap and wait.
He went on,“So, Regina dashes into one of her cabinets, grabs a trap, paints it with peanut butter and rushes out into the middle of the room.”
Nathan mimed Regina slapping peanut butter on a trap and tiptoeing to set it in the middle of the room.
“She sets it down right here!” he indicated the spot, and then slaps his forehead in amazement.
Angie, still attempting to set up the birth supplies, pulled off her glasses and wiped tears of mirth as she watched Nathan’s antics.
Regina shook her head and went on clickety clacking with the rocker. “That’s right,” she interjected, “but just keep telling the story, Nathan.”
“I told her, ‘Now Regina, a mouse will NEVER, EVER run into the middle of the—’ and just then . . .” He slapped his hands. “Right into the trap!”
He flopped onto the couch. “So what do I know? You can’t argue with Regina.”
We were still laughing when her prayers picked up again.
“Oh, Eve! Why did you do it?! Why did you eat that apple?”
Nathan stroked her back. “Shh. If she hadn’t done it, you would have.”
“Would I have?! Oh, I’m sure I would have . . .” she grumbled.
Then, out of nowhere, she looked at me wide-eyed.
“Your mother was crazy. Did you know that?”
“What?!”
She pointed to a framed photo on the piano—my parents and all ten of us kids.
“That’s why. She did this TEN times. On purpose! That takes crazy.”
“Regina,” Nathan said, “maybe you should be quiet now.”
But Angie and I were helpless, trying to muffle our laughter.
Then, everything changed.
“Oh, G-o-d . . . This is it. Amanda, I need to pu-u-u-sh!”
And moments later, a redheaded baby girl—a little copy of her mother—lay in Regina’s arms, warm and rooting.
Nathan wiped his eyes on his sleeves and looked, not at the baby, but at Regina.
Yes, the curse came through Eve. But I had just watched as another woman rose to conquer it, through prayer, sweat, laughter, and love.
No one said it better than Jesus:
“A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”
Title:
Once in a Blue Moon
Genre:
Memoir
Word Count:
76,000 words
Author Name:
Amanda Lancaster
Author Age Range:
In my 40s
Hook
Every now and then (Once in a blue moon) someone makes an exodus from a virtual world and tries something different—something real. Well, we did that.
Synopsis
I am a midwife and the daughter of a midwife, raised in an intentional Christian community rooted in Anabaptist traditions. From childhood through motherhood, I have lived close to the land, close to people, and close to the sacred moments that define life.
Midwifery gave me a front-row seat to humanity: to pain, beauty, strength, vulnerability, and transformation. This book is not merely about birth—though birth is its lens—it is about the sacred in the ordinary. It is about living slowly, witnessing deeply, and keeping company with life and death in all their subtle grandeur.
Once in a Blue Moon is a lyrical, transparent journey through the heart of a life lived close to the soil and close to God. It is a story of my childhood, my womanhood, my service, and the unexpected ways grace shows up—often where we least expect it.
Why This Project is a Good Fit
I grew up in an Anabaptist community and still live there today. My life is unique, intriguing, and deeply rooted in a way of life that few people ever get to witness firsthand. And no one can tell it like I can—because I live it. This memoir offers voice and a window into a world that blends faith, family, and vocation into a seamless tapestry. In a time when many long for simplicity and connection, Once in a Blue Moon is both timely and timeless.
Target Audience
Readers who are disillusioned with the virtual world and long to return to something real:
Humorous and deep read aloud for homesteaders and homemakers
Fans of James Herriot, Wendell Berry, and Ann Voskamp
Mothers, midwives, and women in caregiving roles
Families seeking a more grounded, embodied spiritual life
Readers curious about intentional community living, birth work, or sacred storytelling
This book is for anyone who wants to peel themselves away from the glow of a screen and draw close again to their neighbors, to the soil, and to God.
Author Bio
I am a mother of eight, homemaker, midwife, writer, and paramedic who sees the sacred in the ordinary. I live on a homestead in the Texas Hills. I was raised in an intentional Anabaptist community and still make my home there today. My life has been shaped by deep-rooted faith, hands-on service, and the miracle of bearing witness to birth, death, and all the moments in between.
I grew up reading James Herriot and have been writing about my life since I was a child. My book blends humor, humility, reverence, and lyricism in a way that invites readers to slow down, look closer, and rediscover the beauty of life lived in the moment.