Lines 12-19 Summary

Lines 12–13

You might think that the sea is company,
Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

• It's hard to say whom Heaney's addressing in the first part of line 12 with "You might think." The "you" could be the more comfortable and familiar substitute for "one," or he could be addressing readers like us who might think that being on an island is a pretty sweet and peaceful set-up. 
• In any case, there's a hunt, it seems, for something comforting to come from nature. Remember that in line 5 the speaker was dreaming of a potential tree friend. Now the speaker looks to the sea for companionship, as it's crashing onto the cliffs. 
• Even though the house is on an island, the sea appears to be far away. If we had to guess, we'd say the house is high up on a hill (that would explain the horrifying wind, and Heaney writing "down on the cliffs," which creates kind of a bird's-eye view). 
• Also, from far away, the waves crashing on rocks look soft and foamy ("exploding comfortably"), but we have a feeling that the truth of the matter is probably different. Let's read on…

Lines 14–15

But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits
The very windows, spits like a tame cat

• Yep, no surprise here: the sea isn't good company either. When the storm begins, the spray from the crashing waves actually sails high enough to hit the "very windows" of the house. Those are some rough and tumbling waves, gang.
• Heaney begins this line with "But" just like he did in line 11. It disrupts the expectations that he set up in the previous line. We might think one way but, as Heaney reminds us in the following line, we are dead wrong. 
• During the storm, every element of nature seems to assault this poor house on the island. 
• Heaney uses a simile here to compare the ocean's spray to the spit of a tame cat. That's curious, because the ocean doesn't seem very tame at all. We'll have to jump to the next line to see how that comparison develops. 
• Before we do, though, notice how the sibilance (S sounds) that first surfaced in lines 4 and 5 has been kicked up a notch. It sounds like the wind is a hissing cat. Check out "Sound Check" for more.

Line 16

Turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives

• This is not the kind of stray you want hanging around. The comparison makes more sense now: the tame cat is spitting (and hissing) because it's turned completely savage and angry, just like the sea during the storm.
• Mittens is not to be messed with, and neither is Mother Nature.
• This is not the first time Heaney's pulled a switcheroo with meaning by using enjambment (check out the break between lines 3 and 4, for example). At first we think he's comparing the sea spray to a tame cat, but as we read on we see it's actually a savage cat. Hissing, spitting, scratching pet anyone? No takers? 
• While we admit it's really subtle, the repetition of the W sound in this line with "while wind" actually sounds like wind whooshing around the house. (Hit up "Sound Check" for more.)
• The people in the house have no choice but to sit and wait it out. They stay where they are, listening to the storm thrash at the house.
• You have to imagine that it's probably pretty scary to hear the wrath (rage) of the storm beating at your house while you sit there helplessly waiting for it to pass. 

Lines 17-18

And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo,
We are bombarded with the empty air. 

• "Strafes" means to pelt with ammunition, bombard, or bomb. The wind is absolutely bombarding the house—yikes! What's worse is that the folks in their houses can't see it. It's got to be a helpless kind of feeling to have to defend oneself against an invisible enemy. 
• "Salvo" means shooting off weapons all in unison. When Heaney writes, "space is salvo," he probably means that the air around the house, like a bunch of artillery, seems to be constantly firing at the house. 
• Line 18 carries on with a similar idea: that the air (something of apparently no solid substance—invisible and empty) has turned into a weapon, and is blasting at the house. 
• The sibilance is still in full swing (yes, we did that on purpose). The repetition of S sounds makes for a threatening, hissing sound, like the whipping wind swishing around the house. ("Sound Check" has more on this.)

Line 19

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear. 

• In the poem's final line, Heaney's speaker comments on how it's weird that they fear the air (a huge nothing).
• But when the air turns into hazardous wind, it makes plenty of sense to fear it. Heaney was warming this idea up in lines 17 and 18 when he talked about how threatening something "invisible" and "empty" can be.
• In this way, Heaney ends the poem with a powerful paradox. The very plain and familiar adjective "huge" becomes interesting when it's used to describe "nothing." Nothing, of course, has no size at all, so to describe it as huge takes a little imagination. It's a little bit of a riddle, but it points to a central message in this poem: the powerlessness of humanity against the awesome might of the expansive natural world. In other words, nature itself is a kind of "huge nothing." Just like the air can be empty, then suddenly turn into a threatening force in the form of wind, so too can any part of the natural world—whether it's the sea, the land, or a cute widdle kiddy cat. And here us humans sit, basically totally at the mercy of nature's whims. Feel better yet? 
• Well, feeling good is not exactly what this poem's about. In fact, this last line makes us feel even more isolated.
• Throughout the poem, the speaker is looking for things on the island, and in nature, to find comfort in. During the storm, however, all things natural become threatening. We're left with the thought of a tiny house on an island that is being hammered by a storm, and the people inside it can do nothing but wait it out in fear. It's a serious nail-biter of a poem, and by the end, we're no more relaxed. We're even starting to look at our cats differently…