The Naughty Stars
The stars scoop up the little white clouds And chew and chew till soon They make them into paper wads And toss them at the moon.
Mary Carolyn Davies
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
The stars scoop up the little white clouds And chew and chew till soon They make them into paper wads And toss them at the moon.
Four short lines, and the night sky turns into a classroom with no teacher in sight. The stars are the troublemakers here: they gather up small white clouds, chew them into soggy paper wads, and fire them at the moon. Anyone who has ever sat at the back of a room with a mouthful of paper and a good aim will recognize the scene right away.
What makes it work is how the poem takes something huge and distant and shrinks it to a size a child can grasp. The sky isn't solemn or mysterious. It's a place where mischief happens. The speaker doesn't scold, either. The title calls the stars "naughty," but the word sounds affectionate, the way you'd say it about a kid you secretly enjoy. The repeated "chew and chew" adds a little comic rhythm, and the mood stays light, playful, and quietly delighted. Even the moon, the target of all this, seems more like a good-humored victim than a serious figure.