Sometimes Martin made ridiculous, wholesale changes that you can only look at in disbelief and shake your head.
Sometimes he made "minor" changes such as these.
But really, there is no such thing as "minor" changes to poetry. "Minor changes" are nothing more than the death of a thousand cuts. If you make "minor" changes to 10% of the brush strokes in a painting, you have completely changed the painting. The same idea applies to poetry. The words matter. The pace matters. The rhythm matters. That's what poetry is.
This is just another in what is now a seemingly endless series of examples that Martin believes you are an imbecile who needs everything spelled out for you. "Barbara, look at this! Why, there are no adjectives at all in these poems. How will anyone know what's happening? How will they know what to think? Fetch my red pencils, dear, and a pitcher of warm milk...It's going to be a long night."
If every word the writer uses isn't important, if in fact the words don't matter at all, what is poetry for?