The plane is tiled by congruent squares and congruent pentagons as indicated. The percent of the plane that is enclosed by the pentagons is closest to
[asy] unitsize(3mm); defaultpen(linewidth(0.8pt));  path p1=(0,0)--(3,0)--(3,3)--(0,3)--(0,0); path p2=(0,1)--(1,1)--(1,0); path p3=(2,0)--(2,1)--(3,1); path p4=(3,2)--(2,2)--(2,3); path p5=(1,3)--(1,2)--(0,2); path p6=(1,1)--(2,2); path p7=(2,1)--(1,2); path[] p=p1^^p2^^p3^^p4^^p5^^p6^^p7; for(int i=0; i<3; ++i) { for(int j=0; j<3; ++j) { draw(shift(3*i,3*j)*p); } } [/asy]
$\textbf{(A) }50 \qquad \textbf{(B) }52  \qquad \textbf{(C) }54 \qquad \textbf{(D) }56 \qquad \textbf{(E) }58$
Consider any single tile:
[asy] unitsize(1cm); defaultpen(linewidth(0.8pt));  path p1=(0,0)--(3,0)--(3,3)--(0,3)--(0,0); path p2=(0,1)--(1,1)--(1,0); path p3=(2,0)--(2,1)--(3,1); path p4=(3,2)--(2,2)--(2,3); path p5=(1,3)--(1,2)--(0,2); path p6=(1,1)--(2,2); path p7=(2,1)--(1,2); path[] p=p1^^p2^^p3^^p4^^p5^^p6^^p7; draw(p); [/asy]
If the side of the small square is $a$, then the area of the tile is $9a^2$, with $4a^2$ covered by squares and $5a^2$ by pentagons.
Hence exactly $5/9$ of any tile are covered by pentagons, and therefore pentagons cover $5/9$ of the plane. When expressed as a percentage, this is $55.\overline{5}\%$, and the closest integer to this value is $\boxed{\textbf{(D) }56}$.