There was a series of four photos that hung on my parents’ wall when I was growing up, all taken on one day, Easter morning, when I was about 5 years old. They showed my sister and me in our brand-new Easter dresses, posing with two friends, a sister and brother who lived up the road from us–the girl my sister’s age and the boy mine. I remember one picture of all four of us, and I think there was one of just my sister and me; I don’t remember the details of the other two.

I spent some time this morning looking for those photos in the albums and boxes I rescued from my mother’s home, but I don’t seem to have them. I wish I did; they loom larger than life in my memory.

Easter always meant new dresses for my sister and me, and sometimes bonnets—which is really what we called them, but only with the word “Easter” preceding. There were hats, and there were Easter bonnets; never just bonnets, never Easter hats.

I haven’t had an Easter bonnet in years, although I wear plenty of hats and have some that would be perfect accessories on a warmer Easter morning than today’s. But there’s something happily nostalgic for me in the phrase “Easter bonnet,” bringing me back to Easters past, to a childhood of innocence.

When I think of Easter now, I think of the Easter story—the son of God brutally murdered, his friends and family rent by tears and sorrow, and a startling rebirth two days later, when all of humanity is redeemed. Though the story revolves around the son of God, though it is a tale of redemption and resurrection, it’s Jesus’ mother I focus on, her heart broken, her son stolen, preceding her in death as no child should its parents. She would have been shattered; I can’t imagine, and don’t want to. I know that Easter is about Jesus’ resurrection, that the death is the story of Good Friday; the cross should be a symbol of joy, not woe. But it is Mary’s sorrow that stays foremost in my mind. The story is beautiful, but as Yeats said, it is a terrible beauty.

So I think instead of spring, a rebirth I can see: flowers starting to bloom, foliage greening, buds bursting from stems that seemed dead. Bird songs are different in the spring, I think, probably a mixture of mating calls and unfamiliar songs from migratory birds we don’t hear the rest of the year. So the spring garden is both familiar and unfamiliar.

National Poetry Month begins today, and though there is beautiful poetry specifically for Easter, today I want poetry of spring. It seems e.e. cummings isn’t much in fashion, but his [in-Just]—with its mud-luscious, puddle-wonderful, and goat-footed balloonman—has always been a favorite of mine. For this day when I want spring and happiness, Billy Collins’ Today brings me joy.