The Rainbow Bridge Poem: Its Meaning and Where It Comes From

The Rainbow Bridge is the idea, from a short prose poem, that when a beloved pet dies they go to a peaceful meadow just this side of heaven. There they are young and healthy again and wait happily until their person arrives, and then the two cross a rainbow bridge together. "Crossed the Rainbow Bridge" has become a gentle, widely understood way to say a pet has died.

What the poem describes

The poem is short, usually a few paragraphs, and follows a simple story:

• A meadow near a bridge. When a pet who was especially loved dies, they go to green fields and hills beside the Rainbow Bridge.
• Healed and whole again. There's plenty of food, water and sunshine, and pets who were old or ill are restored to health. They play together and are content.
• Missing one thing. Each animal misses the person who loved them.
• The reunion. One day a pet stops, looks into the distance and runs across the grass. Their person has arrived. They're reunited and cross the bridge together, never to be parted again.

The poem's appeal is that it gives grieving owners a picture of their pet happy, healthy and waiting, and a promise of seeing them again.

Who wrote the Rainbow Bridge poem?

For decades the poem was shared as "author unknown", passed around in pet-loss newsletters, vet offices and, later, online. Several people have been suggested as its author. In 2023, National Geographic reported research by historian Paul Koudounaris pointing to Edna Clyne-Rekhy, who wrote it in Scotland in 1959, aged 19, after her Labrador, Major, died. Because authorship and copyright have been disputed, we describe the poem here rather than reprinting it. The full text is easy to find through rescue and pet-loss organizations that share it with credit.

How people use the Rainbow Bridge today

• Saying goodbye: "Max crossed the Rainbow Bridge this morning" softens hard news in a message or post.
• Comforting children: the meadow image gives children a calm way to think about where their pet has gone.
• Memorials: rainbows on cards, frames, garden stones and keepsakes, often with lines like "Until we meet at the Rainbow Bridge" or "Wait for me at the bridge".
• Remembrance days: many pet owners mark Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day on August 28 by lighting a candle or sharing a photo.

Short Rainbow Bridge lines for a memorial

• Until we meet at the Rainbow Bridge
• Wait for me at the bridge
• Run free, sweet one
• Forever loved, forever waiting
• Over the rainbow, never out of my heart

For more ideas, see our guide to what to write on a pet memorial.

If you're not religious

Many people who don't hold religious beliefs still find comfort in the Rainbow Bridge as a kind image rather than a literal place: a way of picturing a pet free of pain. Others prefer simpler words, such as "Forever loved" or "Thank you for every day". There's no right way to grieve a pet.

Remembering them with a rainbow

Our memorial mug and poster can show your pet in a soft watercolor style, drawn by AI from a favorite photo, with a gentle rainbow bridge, a halo and clouds, or just as they were, and their name. You see the design before deciding, and we print exactly the portrait and words you approve.