"The firs stand in procession, each with an emerald turkey / foot at the top"
This line courts absurdity; fir trees don't literally have "turkey feet" on top of them. But by redescribing the bare branches that cap the fir trees in vivid, fantastic imagery—gleaming like emeralds, gnarly and grotesque like turkey's feet—she shows the power of her own vision to bring nature to life. This line demonstrates her own right to a "view" of things by showing how powerful that view is.
"in which if they twist and turn, it is neither with volition nor / consciousness"
This is an oblique and compelling line, suggesting violence in the most sensuous way. The "dropped things," most likely human beings, "turn and twist" without any control over their form and without any awareness. It is implied, then, that these are drowned bodies, already claimed and collected by the "rapacious" sea. Critic Jeanne Heuving notes that is important that the poem ends with the word "consciousness" as opposed to "volition" because "it is the speaker's unswerving awareness of the sea as a grave, and not her will to power over it, that allows her to resolve her crisis" (the crisis of which Heuving speaks is Moore figuring out her place in relation to nature).
"it is human nature to stand in the middle of things"
This is the line Moore's mother uttered when Moore complained about a man blocking their view of the sea. It is a charitable recognition that human beings have a tendency toward self-absorption that not only allows them to think they have power over nature but leads them to obstruct others in their quest, however unconscious, for power, fulfillment, etc. Moore acknowledges this to be true, but presents, in her own approach to the sea, a better model for self-conception, one that knows limitations and respects Nature. At the same time, Moore wants to transcend arbitrary societal boundaries such as male supremacy in order to achieve her own voice. It is this duality that gives the poem its power.
