Almighty Volta: Let us Adore Her Kinship Valleys

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD

**Submitted on December 12, 2012

Seeing your estuary in Ada

Far from your Voltaic home

I opened my mouth in awe

I praise you, I salute you

Almighty River Volta

As you crest in flow

As your bubbles glow

As your bubbles meander

Serenading Ghana

With your harmonious flow

Solemn flow of networks

Flowing tenderly over us

Caressing Mother Ghana

From the great North

Linking the great South

Reconfiguring Ghana

With your natal watershed

Of fish, clams, mollusks

Your pristine flow at dawn

Summons the sun to stand still

To rise at night and still Ghana

Your eternal architecture

Configurations of your valley

With the White Volta

In the Upper East

With the Black Volta

In the Upper West

With the Red Volta

In the Northern Region

Your flow of symmetric flow

That reconfigures your banks

Ah! It creates soothing earthquakes

Splashing water along your levees

Splendid crucible of your symmetry

Ah! Your ontological flow

Flowing in your pristine valley

Falling over falls of ancient eras

In the midst of political storms

Ah! Volta you flow in stride

Along your luxuriant shores

From the North to the South

You provide for them all

Your tributaries

Your inhabitants

Ah! Rich Volta

Ebullient bubbles

Your estuary is kinship

With poise

With gallantry

With braveness

With a sense of purpose

You have it all in flow

Rich, supreme Volta

Your flow provides all

The best drinking water

Ah! Best roads

Ah! Best schools

Ah! Best jobs

Ah! Best homes

Supreme Volta

The richest valley

The most developed valley

The most urbanized valley

You are regal in your flow

You flow anywhere and anyhow

Ah! You flow all the way to Accra

Flood Accra in search of your son

Your saintly son Woyome

Your greatest son

Volta you can flow in space

Gallant Volta is gallant than all

Gallant than Densu and Birim

Volta you can imagine all

If your neighbor Birim

Brimming with hubris

Had changed course to Accra

To hail Kwasi Opoku

To hail Yaw Ofori Atta

There will be tears

Sorrow, sadness

Brimming Birim

Will flow no more

Ah! the world will end

Volta you are cresting

You have the right to flow

You have the right to solemnity

You have tributary networks

Buttressing your regular flow

Regular flow in the dry season

Regular flow in seasons of anomy

Even in seasons of anomy you flow

Volta rises and flows

Flows across Ghana

Volta has done it all

Volta always delivers her people

From poverty

From underdevelopment

Volta is always flowing

Renewing the flow of faith

Renewing the flow of devotion

Renewing the flow of loyalty

Renewing the flow of kinship

Renewing the flow of constancy

Like the sun at noon

Volta always warms her people

Mighty Volta, I salute your unity of flow

Mighty Volta, I salute your unity of purpose

*Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained

oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania

with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In

her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical”

poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com My poems and essays on Ghanaweb

and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or

scholarly work without my written permission.