Jesmond Park Lovers hold one another tight, tense and still on a distant bench. Shadows, fast as gathering night fill the spaces in the trees and earth has a wet, vital stench that will seize and make you stop. The soft ping of a bicycle goes so swiftly past you’d swear it hadn’t been; then the dull plop of jogger’s feet behind you but, when you turn, they’re lost to view. Frogs keep up a steady chirr chirr. You try to take it all in. It is assimilating you.   Leon Trainor