Stillness and the sound of cicadas

Can a landscape be still and noisy at the same time? There is a wonderful haiku by Matsuo Bashō that plays on this paradox: 'shizukasa ya / iwa ni shimiiru / semi no koe'. The first word means 'stillness' and the cutting word 'ya' suggests that this applies to everything that follows: 'penetrating into the rocks, voices of the cicadas.' We might imagine the poet becoming gradually aware that the constant sound of these insects is permeating everything, even the rocks, even himself. Haiku scholars have tried to explain the poem - debating the type and number of cicadas (perhaps there was only one), or wondering if he had in mind some kind of porous rock. This latter idea is not as misguided as it might sound, because the region where it was written (halfway through Bashō's Narrow Road to the Deep North journey) does have some soft volcanic rock. And yet it is more intriguing to contemplate the paradox of an ostensibly noisy place that is able to convey a feeling of stillness. In his…

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