The poem
Obscurely yet most surely called to praise, As sometimes summer calls us all, I said The hills are heavens full of branching ways Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead; I said the trees are mines in air, I said See how the sparrow burrows in the sky! And then I wondered why this mad instead Perverts our praise to uncreation, why Such savour's in this wrenching things awry. Does sense so stale that it must needs derange The world to know it? To a praiseful eye Should it not be enough of fresh and strange That trees grow green, and moles can course in clay, And sparrows sweep the ceiling of our day?
Comment on Praise In Summer By Richard Wilbur
Though things are what they seem, imagination sometimes makes them sing. In the world of living things,poets take care and soundly create a force of placements that hardly bring what thought has seen. So in a world where balance is a perfect choice for focus, the poet is the pivot to his notice.