(A Cry from Ɔkyeman)
By Gideon Kwasi Annor
The river once sang to us,
clear, calm, alive.
Birim, the mirror of our soul,
where children bathed in laughter
and farmers found the promise of dawn.
She was the pride of Kyebi,
the lifeline of Ɔkyeman,
the pulse of Ohum.
But today, she chokes.
Her breath is heavy with poison.
Her voice, once sweet and silvery,
is now a murmur beneath mud.
Where water once flowed,
mercury sleeps.
Where hope once gleamed,
greed reigns.
Ei, Akyemkwaa a ɔnom Birim paa nie?
Is this the son of Akyem,
he who boasted of drinking from Birim,
who now watches her die,
hands folded, lips silent,
as strangers dig out her heart?
We have traded our life for glitter,
our purity for poison,
our children’s tomorrow for a handful of gold.
Foreigners roam our forests,
our brothers guard their sins with guns,
and the once sacred song of the land
is drowned by the roar of machines.
Look!
The schoolyard is empty,
our children fetch water instead of knowledge.
The farms lie wounded,
the cocoa trees bleed.
And mothers walk miles for a cup of what used to flow at their doorstep.
When water is life,
and Birim is gone,
then life itself has fled from Ɔkyeman.
This is not the heritage our fathers built.
This is not the Akyem that drank purity and spoke truth.
We cannot call ourselves sons of the land
while standing upon its grave.
So I raise my voice, not in politics,
but in pain.
Let the conscience of every Ghanaian awake.
Let the law rise without fear or favour.
Let justice run like the Birim once did,
clean, strong, unstoppable.
We can heal her yet.
We can make her sing again.
If we dare to love this land
more than the gold that kills it.
When Birim flows again,
Ɔkyeman will live again.
And then, truly,
we can say with pride,
Yes, I am an Akyemkwaa;
I drank from the living Birim.
