On Losing the Plot

Software estimating relatedness
Of extant genetic lineages
Can also be used to extrapolate
How many lineages have been lost,

And the same strategies can be deployed
For, say, medieval romances, to tell,
By surveys of surviving manuscripts,
How much of that tradition has been lost.

When such results are published, some lament,
The way one would lament extinct species
Or dead languages, all of those wonders
Gone, those stories now never to be told,

But, although particulars of telling,
Unique alleles of tales, really are gone,
Are you sure any story, any plot
From the suite of highly conserved designs,

Has ever left the human atmosphere?
Perhaps the best way to guess how much goes
Is to monitor rates of creation.
No new plots under the sun, then none gone.