lay before

“O hours of childhood, / when behind each shape more that the past lay hidden, / when that which lay before us was not the future,” Rilke muses.

In this condition we could never cross the Pamir Mountains, which lay before Samarkand.

It is worth considering how close they came to the edge and how deep the abyss that lay before them.

Even so, most of the long weekend lay before me, silent, empty and absolutely extraordinary, especially after the project I had expected to be working on was delayed.

Sometimes, the action lay before us; at other times, behind.