Do these two sentence have the same meaning?

Question

The sunbeams are piercing the forest's canopy.

The forest's canopy is pierced with sunbeams.

Answer 1

The sentences mean the same thing; however, one of them is in active voice, and one is in passive voice. In passive voice, the subject of the sentence is not performing the action of the verb. For this sentence, the sunbeams are doing the piercing, not the forest canopy; therefore, the first example is in active voice and the second example is in passive voice. Passive voice is usually only reserved for scientific writing or occasionally for sentences where the noun performing the action is unimportant or irrelevant, but is usually frowned upon in most types of writing.

Answer 2

In a sense, they do, since most people are likely to interpret both statements in the same way. But if you want to get really technical, "The canopy is pierced with sunbeams" should probably be changed to "The canopy is pierced by sunbeams" to mean the same thing as "The sunbeams are piercing the canopy." "The canopy is pierced with sunbeams," taken literally, would mean that the canopy is pierced with something unspecified, and sunbeams are together with the canopy in an unspecified way. (Of course, the usage of "with" to denote such a relationship is common, e.g., "The dog's collar was studded with gemstones," "His tea was laced with a powerful love potion.")