Why does the poet mention burnt woods in "A Passing Glimpse"?
Robert Frost's "A Passing Glimpse" is a poem about perspective, and the example of the burnt woods is one of several that he includes to support his central idea.
The poem begins with the speaker commenting that "I often see flowers from a passing car / That...
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are gone before I can tell what they are" (1-2). These lines introduce the idea of perspective. He sees the flowers as a blur as his train speeds by. He cannot see them in enough detail to identify them, but for most of the remainder of the poem, the speaker describes what he might see if he were to disembark from the train and explore the flowers up close. In his imagination, he says that he "name[s] all the flowers I am sure they weren't" (5).
The reference in your question is the first example he states: "Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt" (6). Fireweed grows in the space where trees have previously burned, thriving on that damaged ground. Frost's speaker qualifies this by saying it's actually not what he would've seen. He also would not have seen bluebells nor lupine. He cannot match up what he thinks he might have seen with what is actually there. He thinks he may have stumbled upon something no one else has ever seen (9-10). The poem's final two lines are the speaker's summation about this theme of perspective: "Heaven gives its glimpses only to those / Not in position to look too close." This seems to indicate that it's not meant to be that we see the same things from a distance and up close. There seems to be some inherent injustice to the sentiment in the final lines, though: only those who cannot appreciate the view are given the perspective.
Why does the poet mention 'where woods have burnt' in "A Passing Glimpse"?
I think the poet you are talking about is Robert Frost:
I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.I name all the flowers I know they weren't:
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt --Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth --
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.Was something brushed across my mine
That no one on earth will ever find?Heaven gives it's glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.
He's referring to "fireweed" (Epilobium angustifolium) flowers which sprout up soon after a wooded area is burned (i.e. in a forest fire). They are beautiful pink or purple flowers.
So the flowers he saw he knew were NOT "fireweed".
I hope that helps!