I have gone back to my earlier draft and shortened the story.
Although the other story was true, it didn¹t sound credible, did it, Perpy,
and yes, Gary, it was told prosily. That¹s because I was trying to cram in
all the facts. Sometimes our first drafts are better! On the other hand I
felt that suddenly running into Œhad a miscarriage¹ isn¹t very smooth,
though its women¹s talk and both the persons in the poem are women.

I¹m trying to imply that giving someone food who needs it is a bit like
feeding the birds, and this girl comes and goes like a bird, and it¹s really
an update on the old tramps that used to roam the country after the second
world war and were often given food at big houses.

I¹m not sure if the ivy is relevant though it sets the country scene and
suggests that the woman is in perhaps a fairly big place, better off than
the girl in the Œcottage¹ anyway. I¹ve also gone back to Œstarted
gossiping¹. This was a case of trying to remove Œings¹. But the hard
line-end words gossiping, and to some extent oranges, lead to the rather
difficult word miscarriage. Why does changing ones work sometimes improve
and sometimes destroy what is there?

Its a difficult poem. Any  more advice? (& thanks for yours James)

FEEDING THE BIRDS

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea
she put the other kitchen things away
and went outside to feed the birds. A robin
strutted, proprietor of an urn. Crows, crowded
on village housetops, watched disdainfully.
Sparrows and chaffinches began to fly
down from the outer apple trees. She threw
crumbs and poppy-seeds of bread to them,
cheese-parings, crust and rind. Around the grass,
soft, wet and ordinary, heaps of ivy,
recently stripped from the old buildings,
lay piecemeal in untidy remnants,
where here and there an early snowdrop spear
clearing the level of the lawn, awoke.

A girl the woman knew came by the gate
among the birds, and started gossiping.
She'd gone to see her dying father,
and while she was away, failed to sign on
and now her money had been stopped. She'd eaten
only a bag of christmas oranges
for nearly a week. She'd had a miscarriage
up at the cottage, brought about perhaps
by worry and starvation.
                           So the woman
took the girl indoors into the kitchen,
among the pots, the cups, the marmalade,
the tea, and shoved a pan at her, and said,
Eat this, cook this, and put this in your pocket.
We've learned this: always keep a store of food,
your cupboards, freezer, tins and apples,
and use your larder for its proper purpose,
to share it with your fellows when they need it.
The cups, the marmalade, the tea are not
for nothing; there's a kitchen in the life
of everyone. The girl ate hungrily
and talked as needfully, then went away,
wandering like the birds, and left the woman
taking the measure of her morning¹s work
after the cups, the marmalade, the tea.