myth for red clover

The first mother was a quiet woman. Not that she never spoke. She was always whispering something to someone - even if it was just to the wind. She always had something to say, she always had a message to send. She never needed to scream. No - that’s not true, she did a couple of times. She was a mother after all.

This mother was also a cow. She had been walking for ten thousand miles. She started her journey from the base of the tallest mountain. 

The cow dreamed of a flower. 

And when it was time to calve she did so alone with no one but birds and bees, the sun and grass to guide her through the 

The calf was beautiful, its eyes large and brown on its soft copper head. It’s legs rickety and trying as the small new being gained balance. The creature learned quickly about grass and bees. They learned about the mountains in the distance. The mother and the calf gave each other names. 

But when the mother woke the calf was gone. Had she only ever dreamed of being a mother? Had she given herself to something that did not exist anymore and if so, what was she now? What could she be? 

The poor cow felt she was nearly going mad. She could not tell what was real from what was her dream. Why had she left her home in the first place? 

But she also realized there was a path through the clearing where red clovers led to a stream. The clovers were the shape of the hoof of her young. She could almost see the calf walking in the sun. Of course the mother wept, but not because she believed her young gone. She would find her. But because she realized she had always been searching and now she knew she was looking, all along for clover. And if she followed it, she would find her calf. So cows, now, they follow clovers.