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Rainbow Bridge Poem Printable
The Rainbow Bridge is the piece of writing most often placed beside a pet's photo after they die. For decades no one knew who wrote it. This page holds the poem, its true story, and a printable setting of it.
Make it yours
print ready · with the author's name on it, at last
When the service is planned, their memory deserves a place that stays. Create their memorial page · free, forever.
The story of the poem
For more than sixty years the Rainbow Bridge circulated with no author's name, copied into cards, taped inside veterinary clinic doors, and read at pet loss gatherings. In 2023, research reported by Scottish media and the poem's own paper trail identified its author as Edna Clyne-Rekhy, who wrote it in Scotland in 1959, as a young woman, on the day after her labrador Major died. She wrote it by hand, showed almost no one, and the pages traveled without her name for a lifetime.
We print it here with her name on it, at last.
Rainbow Bridge
Edna Clyne-Rekhy, 1959, as traditionally circulated.
Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.
All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing. They each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.
They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face. Your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.
Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together.
Where families place it
Printed beside the leash hook. Framed with the collar tag. Read aloud in the backyard on a hard evening. Tucked into the box with the ashes. There is no wrong place. The poem does its work wherever the missing happens.
Keeping their memory
A companion animal's photos and stories can be kept on a memorial page the same way a person's can, gathered where the whole family can visit. When you are ready, their page takes minutes to make and is free, forever.
Questions, answered plainly
Who really wrote the Rainbow Bridge poem?
Edna Clyne-Rekhy, in Scotland in 1959, after the death of her labrador Major. The attribution was established in 2023 after decades of the poem circulating with no author's name.
Can we print it for a pet's service or card?
Families have shared it freely for over sixty years, and its author welcomed knowing how far it traveled. Print it for your own remembering, with her name kept on it.