Set in an unnamed town bordered by mountains and sea, Boyhood reconstructs a vanished time of awakening and discovery. It conveys the emotional force of a forgotten place, telling the tales in lyric fragments conceived as notes on the river and bridge, the slaughterhouse, the airport, the island cosmogony, the market, the neighborhood, the meeting tree, the plaza, the cemetery. All that is lost becomes sensuous in a boy's voice. Memory turns into a glittering work of poetry.