In summer we consider the whine of the mosquito, the secrecy of the spider, the temper of the wasp — who among us could love you? Who could love even one of you, bearing your poisons and your pain into the heavy summertime air? We could. We could love you if we remind ourselves that no creature is made up only of poison, that no life is only a source of irritation or pain.

We could love the mosquitoes for feeding the chittering chimney swifts wheeling in the sunset, for feeding the tree swallows flying low over the lake at dusk. We could love the spider for spinning the silk that holds together the moss of the hummingbird’s nest, the silk that stretches as the baby birds grow. We could love the wasp for eating the caterpillars that eat the tomato plants. We could love you all if only we remembered the tree swallows and the hummingbirds, if only we remembered the taste of homegrown tomatoes still warm from the sun.

On endless summertime evenings, on cool and generous summertime evenings, let us speak kindly of the red bat, the homely little bat with the smushed face and the hairless infants clinging to her fur by teeth and thumb and feet. In daylight, she dangles one-footed from a tree branch, masquerading as a dead leaf. At nightfall she unfolds her canny wings and skitters to her work, sweeping through the skies, circling under the streetlights, clearing the air of moths whose larvae eat our trees, sweeping up all the whining, stinging creatures we swat at in the dark.

Behold the rat snake gliding silently through the nighttime weeds. Behold the sleek skin, cool but not damp, and the clever darting tongue, sniffing out the contours of the world. Watch as she finds the crack under the toolshed door. Understand that she is finding too the tiny bald mice in the corner of a drawer full of painting rags — the tiny blind mice hidden in the soft remains of ancient bedsheets fallen to ruin.

Pity the young of the poor field mouse, born for just this purpose. Always there are mice — more mice than the world could ever hold if not for a system that includes this beautiful, sinewy creature, this silent celebration of muscle and grace, this serpent serving our uses but too often coming to a brutal end at the end of a hoe.