tallest hill

A few miles from our house is the tallest point in Indianapolis. It is on the edge of a very large cemetary called Crown Hill that is located in the north central part of the city. In the early 20th century, when the poet James Whitcomb Riley died, the powers that be got into a fight with a smaller Indiana town, Greenfield, over where Riley would be buried. While Riley was born in Greenfield, he lived for many years in Indianapolis. The compromise was that his funeral was held in Greenfield, but he was given a spot on top of the tallest point in Indianapolis for his burial. Nobody was supposed to be buried there, but they decided that Riley, a popular poet, deserved the spot.

Sitting on top of this hill is this rectangular, open-roofed monument over Riley's grave. In a flat city, it is our one big hill. I've often thought about getting black and white film and taking a picture from below the monument looking up its crest, one in each season, and calling all four "the tallest hill."