North By Northwest

(Blank Verse Sonnet) We traded fields of cotton bolls for snows so deep they swallowed house and car alike, so cold a breath transformed to crystal ice, so strong the air became as still as death. A fur-lined boot or glove spared flimsy guard as fingers, toes and nose began to pulse in pain and foster hope to somehow dodge or ease the winter's all-consuming freeze. Yet skin and pores recalled a choking sun and days of sweat beneath its cutthroat burn through cotton rows, its never-ending bite of white-hot scorch and physical malaise. Northern peaks and speckled river trout defeated weather’s aim to drive us south.