The Rainbow Bridge poem and what it means

What the Rainbow Bridge poem says

Just this side of heaven is a place called the Rainbow Bridge. When a pet who was loved dies, it goes to the meadows and hills beside it, where there is always food, fresh water and warm sunshine, and friends to run and play with.

Every animal who was old or sick is young and strong again. Every one who was hurt is whole. They are happy and content — except for one thing. Each of them misses someone very special who had to be left behind.

Then one day, one of them stops playing and looks into the distance. Their eyes brighten, their body trembles, and they break away from the group, running faster and faster across the grass. They have seen you. When you finally meet, you hold each other and never part again — and you cross the Rainbow Bridge together.

Who wrote the Rainbow Bridge poem?

For decades the poem circulated with “author unknown.” It spread through pet-loss newsletters in the 1980s and then across the early internet, and several people have been credited with writing it.

The most widely reported account credits Edna Clyne-Rekhy, a Scottish artist who said she wrote it in the late 1950s after the death of her dog, Major. Other claims and earlier printed versions exist, so the authorship is still discussed. Because of that, we retell the story above in our own words rather than reprinting the full text.

A Rainbow Bridge poem for the Day of the Dead

In Mexico, pets are said to come home on October 27, following a path of marigold petals to an ofrenda with their photo, water and a candle. These two original poems imagine the pets of the Rainbow Bridge making that journey. You may copy, print and share them freely.

The Marigold Bridge

There is a bridge of marigolds that only opens once a year, when candles burn on windowsills and someone whispers, “You’re still here.” The meadow past the rainbow’s end is warm, and no one there is old; but on the twenty-seventh night they leave it for a road of gold. They follow petals to the door, they find their bowl, their bed, their name, they rest a while beside the flame — and love goes home the way it came.

Wait for Me

Don’t hurry across, my darling — stay where the grass is soft and the sun is low. I’m coming too, though not today, and I’ll know you by the way you go: the wag, the stretch, the little leap, the way you always ran to me. Till then I’ll leave a light to keep, and a marigold path for you to see.

Ways to use the poem

• Print it on a card and set it beside their photo on a pet ofrenda.
• Read it aloud when you light a candle for them on the evening of October 27.
• Write it inside a sympathy card for a friend whose pet died.
• Pair it with a Marigold Bridge memorial video of your pet walking home on a path of petals.

Looking for something shorter? See our pet loss quotes and pet memorial ideas.