Dave Bonta's "Recollection" is a short, hazy look back at a time the speaker didn't fully grasp while living through it. The poem opens with a strange, soothing image: morning as "a sober ointment," something that calms and heals, like a cool balm after a rough night. The next line, "who understands the world at first sight," reads almost like a question or a wry aside. Does anyone really see clearly right away?
Then the speaker turns to memory: "a thin hard season," with people in the streets. The words "thin" and "hard" suggest scarcity or difficulty, though the poem never says exactly what the season was. The speaker admits they "did not understand" the people, who were singing, and everything seemed to happen "in a sort of haze."
The mood is quiet, wistful, and slightly dreamlike. The speaker seems to feel distance from the past, and perhaps a gentle regret that understanding comes only later, in the clearer light of morning.