The Road
I like to watch the winding road, With all its crooks and swerves, What a baseball pitcher I should be If I had as many curves!
Mary Carolyn Davies
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
I like to watch the winding road, With all its crooks and swerves, What a baseball pitcher I should be If I had as many curves!
Mary Carolyn Davies starts out sounding like a quiet nature poem. The speaker enjoys watching a winding road, with its "crooks and swerves," and you expect the next line to turn dreamy or reflective. Instead it takes a sharp turn of its own, much like the road it describes.
In the last two lines, the speaker jumps to baseball. A curveball bends through the air, and a road bends across the land, so the same word, "curves," works for both. The speaker imagines that if they had as many curves as the road does, they'd be an unbeatable pitcher.
The mood is light, playful, and a little cheeky. The speaker isn't solemn about the landscape. They're amused by a pun and happy to share the joke. The poem is short enough to feel like a quick aside, and its surprise ending is the whole point: the road's twisting shape suddenly becomes something to envy.