We Named Him Wren.

A Poem About Fatherhood, Legacy, and Letting Go.

I never set out to write a poem about fatherhood. Not really.

I set out to wrestle with inheritance, not the kind measured in assets, but the kind that lingers in blood and memory—the patterns we inherit, the ones we resist, the ones we unknowingly pass down.

This poem, We Named Him Wren, is a meditation on masculinity and fatherhood, on the weight of naming a child, on the complexities of raising a son when my own birth father was a ghost—and worse, a wound I carried without knowing it.

It is also deeply personal, perhaps the most personal poem I have ever written. It is a love letter to my son and to the unknowable space between fathers and sons, to the act of building something imperfect and leaving it unfinished for someone else to complete.

It is also about nests, about half-built homes, about the quiet work of raising a child and accepting that they will one day leave, like you, too.

I had the phrase “…we named him Wren.” in my head for weeks, I knew this was the mantra that would yield an outpouring of words.

A Poem About Fatherhood, Forgiveness & the Nest We Leave Behind

I think a lot about how we are shaped by what we don’t have, how men—particularly those of previous generations—were taught to carry things silently, to hand them off like heirlooms, wrapped in expectation and detachment.

I grew up not associating with ‘Alpha’ males, feeling caught between an identity that was overtly sexual and softly poetic - but also alienated because of being in touch with my emotions.

I can only imagine how young men feel today; they are told that masculinity is abhorrent (and rightfully, there needs to be a rebalance), OR even worse, we see a rise in uber-masculinity as a repercussion.

The rates of suicides and mental health struggles in young men are at an alarming rate and show no signs of abating.

But if there is one thing I know for sure, it is this: silence is the worst inheritance.

And so, this is my poem. My love letter to my son.

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We Named Him Wren.

In a world of sharp elbows,
and confused masculinity,
modernity glows
in artificial, pixelated hues.

Short, short, shorts.
Attention spans collapse.
Ice shelves collapse.
Boys collapse.

We.
All.
Fall.
Down.

The West is on fire.
What’s burning in front of us now,
is all that we see,
all that we ever will know.
Out of place.
Out of time.
South-facing.
Neck crooked.
Migrated desires,
lost in a hazy distance,
bordering close to a new life.

We named you Wren,
small-bodied, sharp-eyed,
a creature of restless song.

The belly-up, belly-full bird,
calling loud,
perched and quivering,
bobbing up and down, down and up.

I recall your birth.
You arrived—reluctantly.
But oh, how you were loved.

We named you Wren.
Not a burden,
but a call to arms.

The King of Birds, the trickster,
not nearly as strong as the eagle,
but wiser by far.
Our homely boy,
buried headfirst under your mother’s wing,
comforted by safety.
You flew highest of all.

Male wrens build their nests,
half-formed, waiting
for their mate
to add final touches
to call it a place of their own.

Patient as you are,
your sister does the rest.

You are precise.
She is not.

Where did all this empathy come from?
Your softness is a wonder.

We named you Wren.
And for such a small bird,
what a noise;
loud and insistent,
your song fills the air.

When we found out we were having a son,
my now-estranged aunt warned,

"Oh, the men in our family.
They don’t father their sons well."

As if I would flee the nest,
as if the weight of the unknown
was my cross to bear.
That was her family, not mine.

Do memories travel in blood?

These paternal ruptures
were an inheritance never sought.

In the summer of renewal,
I drove to the shoreline,
you in tow,
as your mother played with spirits in the forest.
Under a giving tree, she meditated.
While we skimmed flat rocks across the sea.
1—---2—--3—4—5–6-789.

It happened then.

The tears, they flowed.
Remembering the truth
of the fragile boy I once was,
with all the hate I then carried.

Bittersweet me.

To forgive myself.
To forgive him.
To forgive.

I cursed myself.
How had I not known this was the relief?

To be forgiven is to forgive.

Iris Murdoch knew this truth.
It was the greatest gift given.

And, truth be told, I found it hard.
I find it hard.
To be a father.

Was the curse bestowed upon the bloodline — true?

I often remark, as if I had mastered the art,
that parenting is one long sigh.
From the cradle to the grave,
we are in one silent goodbye.

In between those moments.
We must raise empowered daughters.
We must nurture empathetic sons.

This part you made easy.
You always did.

When we connect,
we don’t soar,
we skitter low, wings tucked,
bouncing proudly across the ground,
like your namesake,
flitting beneath Japanese maples,
pecking at fallen seeds,
dancing around squirrels who gather leaves.

We serenade each other
in ways only we understand
and in ways we don’t,
or likely ever will.

We named you Wren, my son,
my love, my boy.

My failings live through you,
my triumphs, my joy.

In the quiet between us,
where words often fail,
this love persists.

I built you this nest,
left it half untidy,
for you to make it your own.

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If this poem resonates, share it. I think, perhaps, this is the conversation we should be having with our sons.

And as always, thank you for reading.

— G. K. Allum